Voter turnout in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairmanship by-election on Sunday was only 17.59 percent.
Although Vice President William Lai (賴清德) was unopposed, he nevertheless held many public assemblies in counties and cities across Taiwan during the short campaign period to hear the opinions of party members concerning its vast losses in the local elections on Nov. 26 last year.
By listening to members’ dissatisfaction and their ideas for party reform, and demonstrating a determination to act when needed, Lai proposed improvements to party operations and discussed how it can do better. He vowed to revive the spirit and the discipline of the DPP to win back the trust of Taiwanese.
This does not mean carrying out these plans would be plain sailing.
First, DPP membership at its peak exceeded 500,000, but has dropped to about 230,000.
Second, the 17.59 percent turnout rate is lower than the 19.73 percent that voted in the 2005 DPP leadership election, in which the candidate was also unopposed.
Third, in Tainan, the area Lai originally represented, voter turnout was below the national average at 15.52 percent.
As the DPP chairman, if Lai wants to boost party morale, he must introduce drastic reforms that produce immediate results so that party members and swing voters feel that the DPP has genuinely recovered its original values of being untainted, hardworking and patriotic.
Only then might the party find itself victorious in the presidential and legislative elections next year.
Wang Chou-ming is director of the Anti-Bribery Research Office.
Translated by Lin Lee-kai
The Executive Yuan recently revised a page of its Web site on ethnic groups in Taiwan, replacing the term “Han” (漢族) with “the rest of the population.” The page, which was updated on March 24, describes the composition of Taiwan’s registered households as indigenous (2.5 percent), foreign origin (1.2 percent) and the rest of the population (96.2 percent). The change was picked up by a social media user and amplified by local media, sparking heated discussion over the weekend. The pan-blue and pro-China camp called it a politically motivated desinicization attempt to obscure the Han Chinese ethnicity of most Taiwanese.
On Wednesday last week, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) asserting the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) territorial claim over Taiwan effective 1945, predicated upon instruments such as the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation. The article further contended that this de jure and de facto status was subsequently reaffirmed by UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs promptly issued a statement categorically repudiating these assertions. In addition to the reasons put forward by the ministry, I believe that China’s assertions are open to questions in international
The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment on Friday last week to add four national holidays and make Workers’ Day a national holiday for all sectors — a move referred to as “four plus one.” The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who used their combined legislative majority to push the bill through its third reading, claim the holidays were chosen based on their inherent significance and social relevance. However, in passing the amendment, they have stuck to the traditional mindset of taking a holiday just for the sake of it, failing to make good use of
As strategic tensions escalate across the vast Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan has emerged as more than a potential flashpoint. It is the fulcrum upon which the credibility of the evolving American-led strategy of integrated deterrence now rests. How the US and regional powers like Japan respond to Taiwan’s defense, and how credible the deterrent against Chinese aggression proves to be, will profoundly shape the Indo-Pacific security architecture for years to come. A successful defense of Taiwan through strengthened deterrence in the Indo-Pacific would enhance the credibility of the US-led alliance system and underpin America’s global preeminence, while a failure of integrated deterrence would