Former transportation and communications minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) have expressed interest in running for Taipei and New Taipei City mayor respectively, but have been stuck in political limbo due to a lack of primaries. Their problem is not whether they could win a primary, it is that they cannot even gain admission to the game.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), whom DPP supporters widely expect to run for Taipei mayor, could eventually be picked by the party, but as the party gradually loses momentum due to a delay in making nominations, Chen said that he no does not want to be a “spare tire.”
Of the local seats up for grabs on Nov. 26, the Taipei and New Taipei mayoral positions are the most important. If the decision about who represents the DPP in those elections is decided by party chairperson President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) alone, without any primaries, would voters accept them? Has the party not sensed the danger here?
The DPP Central Executive Committee last year approved special regulations allowing the party chairperson to nominate mayoral and commissioner candidates in the six special municipalities.
Neither Lin nor Lo voiced objections to the move, so they are partly to blame for their situation, as they failed to protest the deterioration of the party’s traditional democratic principles. They not only hurt their own rights, but those of other party members. They have no leg to stand on with their complaints.
The abolition of primaries leaves no mechanism to ensure fair competition. The 19th-century historian John Dalberg-Acton, better known as Lord Acton said that “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
His remark encapsulates the negative consequences of power without constraint. Apart from corruption, such power inevitably stifles competence. Tsai delaying the direct appointment of mayoral candidates until the last minute is disrespectful to all mayoral hopefuls, and shows contempt for local voters. It is also a lost opportunity for the party to demonstrate decisiveness. This is what incompetence under a dictatorship looks like.
The controversy over the early retirement of former National Police Agency director-general Chen Ja-chin (陳家欽) last month serves as another example. After stepping down, Chen accused Minister of the Interior Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) of intervening in police personnel affairs. Hsu said that such power belonged to him, and that the former police head’s accusation was laughable.
However, Hsu was not quite right.
Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) once said that the president is in charge of the “eight major intelligence units” through the National Security Bureau of the National Security Council, which reports directly to the Presidential Office.
While the president has that prerogative, respect for the professionals within an agency should be an overriding concern. Without regard for their independence, the National Police Agency would hardly be able to lead a force of 80,000.
Under the Organizational Act of the National Security Bureau (國家安全局組織法), the bureau is responsible for the guidance, coordination and support of the nation’s major intelligence units, including the National Police Agency. How, then, did problems get out of control? It is clearly a result of the president’s incompetence. The next concern is whether the police force of 80,000 will be able to keep it together.
Chin Heng-wei is a political commentator.
Translated by Eddy Chang
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
In the 2022 book Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, academics Hal Brands and Michael Beckley warned, against conventional wisdom, that it was not a rising China that the US and its allies had to fear, but a declining China. This is because “peaking powers” — nations at the peak of their relative power and staring over the precipice of decline — are particularly dangerous, as they might believe they only have a narrow window of opportunity to grab what they can before decline sets in, they said. The tailwinds that propelled China’s spectacular economic rise over the past