With only eight legislative seats, the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) is by some distance the smallest of the three parties in the new legislature, but as no party has a majority, the other two looked to it for support to guarantee victory in yesterday’s election for legislative speaker.
On Wednesday, the TPP performed a sleight of hand, announcing during a news conference that it would field its own candidate, TPP Legislator-at-large Vivian Huang (黃珊珊), and bring the party whip down hard on any member who voted against her. If she did not win in the first round, it would instruct its members not to participate in the second.
This essentially ensured the election of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator-at-large Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) without casting a single vote for either Han or the incumbent speaker, You Si-kun (游錫堃) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Han was declared the winner in the second round of voting. It would be wonderful to be able to say that the best candidate won — but he did not.
DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) had predicted on Wednesday, following the TPP’s news conference, that this would be the result, telling reporters: “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know how things are going to pan out.”
After Jan. 13’s presidential and legislative elections, the KMT emerged as the largest single party in the legislature. All is fair in politics, love and war, and to the winner go the spoils. However, it is important to be clear on who should be the real winner in yesterday’s election.
The KMT got what it wanted, gaining the edge in setting the agenda, and which legislation passes and fails, despite being frustrated in its attempt to secure the presidency.
Han certainly got what he wanted, being gifted a major, influential constitutional role on the back of his support among a niche, deep-blue section of the electorate that fell so hard for his populist rhetoric five years ago that it continues to disregard his clownish ways, moral superficiality, half-baked policy proposals and proven unsuitability for elected office.
By promising him the nomination for the speakership, the KMT chose to pander to this support, despite Han’s rejection by the wider electorate: In 2020, he was recalled as Kaohsiung mayor and routed in the presidential election, before going off into the political wilderness to lick his wounds.
The TPP also got what it wanted, and TPP Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) has once again shown his cynical hand in manipulating the situation so that the party that received the fewest votes in the presidential election got to decide who became legislative speaker.
The Chinese Communist Party got what it wanted, too, as a consolation prize following its disappointment in president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) victory.
The DPP did not get what it wanted, nor did Lai, both of whom would have a difficult time in the next four years with Han as speaker. Han has essentially said he would use the speakership as a gavel with which to beat the DPP about the head.
The political machinations should not matter, as the legislative speaker should be non-partisan and neutral, but that is the elephant in the room: There is not even a pretense of a promise of neutrality.
It is possible that Han would surprise his detractors and perform his role in a manner the position and the responsibility demand, with a steady, neutral and just hand. The jury is still out on whether he is capable of doing so.
The real winner should be Taiwan, Taiwanese and their hard-fought democracy. Not individual parties. Certainly not individuals. And absolutely not external powers.
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