On Wednesday last week, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) announced his party’s nomination of New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) as its candidate in next year’s presidential election.
The announcement immediately led to accusations that Hou was absconding from his job as mayor. The KMT promptly countered that Vice President William Lai (賴清德) was the real absconder.
However, Hou would do well to follow Lai’s example by immediately resigning as mayor so the Executive Yuan could appoint an acting mayor to prevent New Taipei City from being left rudderless, which could lead to attempts to recall Hou.
What does absconding really mean? Lai and Hou have acted very differently. Lai resigned as mayor of Tainan during his second and last term in office to serve as premier. He later stepped down as premier to run in the Democratic Progressive Party’s presidential primary. Lai resigned both times, so no one could accuse him of trying to have his cake and eat it. In the case of the presidential primary, the Executive Yuan has plenty of resources, so would Lai not have stood a better chance of winning if he had remained as premier? Instead, he showed his sincerity by resigning.
Lai resigned as mayor of Tainan so that the Executive Yuan could assign an acting mayor, ensuring that the municipality would not be left in the lurch.
These examples clearly demonstrate Lai’s political philosophy and style.
In contrast, Hou and the KMT want to have their cake and eat it. The KMT does not dare let Hou resign because it is afraid of losing a mayoral by-election. That would be a repeat of happened to former Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), who won the KMT’s 2019 presidential primary while remaining in office.
As a resident of Kaohsiung, I witnessed how the Kaohsiung City Government was left at a standstill from when Han started to think about seeking the presidency to when he formally joined the race. No one in the administration dared to make big decisions and Kaohsiung residents suffered as a result. Who would have thought that Hou would do the same thing?
It is another matter when incumbent local councilors stand for election as mayors or county commissioners. All major parties, including the KMT, have followed this pattern over the years. It is a normal way of recruiting political talent, unlike when mayors, county commissioners or other administrative heads seek national office while remaining in their local posts.
To tackle the root of the problem and avoid a repeat of the Han saga, the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act (總統副總統選舉罷免法) should be amended to prohibit mayors and county commissioners from standing for election while still in office and stipulating that if they do seek higher office, they would lose their current post on the day they register their candidacy.
However, until such an amendment is enacted, the fundamental solution should be for political parties to discipline themselves and not leave local governments hanging.
Democratic politics should give top priority to public welfare. If parties and politicians do not take this step, they will be accused of not caring about city and county residents, and of being unlikely to put the welfare of the public first as a national leader.
Michael Lin lives in Kaohsiung and holds a master’s degree from National Taiwan University’s Graduate Institute of National Development.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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