Taiwan’s two major political parties yesterday offered diverging views on the Republican victory in US midterm elections, watching closely to see what lessons — if any — could be learned from the anger expressed by US voters at US President Barack Obama’s economic and fiscal policies.
While Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers said that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) should see the US elections as a warning before Taiwan’s own special municipality elections later this month, KMT politicians, eager to avoid a similar result, immediately downplayed any connections between the two polls.
In the US elections on Tuesday, voters replaced at least 60 Democrats in the House of Representatives, returning control of the chamber to the Republicans, who lost it in 2006. Obama’s party retained control of the Senate despite losing at least six seats to Republicans.
DPP lawmakers told a press conference that there were “striking similarities” between the political climate in Taiwan and the US. Both Ma and Obama have been unable to tackle record-high unemployment, stagnating wages and growing government deficits, they said.
The two presidents were both facing unhappy voters in the run-up to the elections because of economic and other reasons, DPP Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said, claiming that the two countries “were in the same situation coming up to the polls.”
“When the US voters see Obama, they sigh at him, and when Taiwanese voters see Ma, they laugh at him,” she said. “We hope the Taiwanese public will also express their disapproval through their ballots.”
DPP Legislator Lee Chun-yee (李俊毅) also hinted that the Republican victory had heightened his own optimism that Taiwan’s opposition party could pull off something similar during the special municipality elections on Nov. 27.
“Judging from the US midterm elections, we are hoping there is a public will to overturn [the current administration],” he said, calling on voters to view the coming polls as a vote on Ma’s policies.
KMT legislators also held a press conference to defend the Ma administration’s performance, disagreeing with the DPP’s suggestion that voters treat the special municipality elections as Ma’s “midterms.”
The KMT lawmakers added that Obama might even learn a lesson or two from Taiwan’s president.
Keen to draw differences between two administration’s handling of the economy, KMT Legislator Alex Fai (費鴻泰) said that unemployment in the US was still hovering at 10 percent, “while in Taiwan the rate has dropped to about 5 percent, from 6.15 percent last year.”
“On handling the economy and unemployment, Obama can take a lesson from [Ma],” he said.
Expressing support for Ma’s efforts to broaden economic ties with China, KMT Legislator Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) attributed Taiwan’s rapid emergence from a recession to Ma “successfully opening up China’s market.”
“The US and Taiwan are in completely different situations,” she said, because as “everyone with a bit of international common sense knows that the US was one of the worst hit by the [global downturn].”
DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), speaking at a separate setting, said she hoped Taiwanese voters would also be able to express their dissatisfaction through the ballot box.
Similar to what took place in the US, Taiwanese “should use their vote as a reflection of their view on the current administration,” said Tsai, who is also the DPP’s candidate for Sinbei City mayor.
While her KMT rival, Eric Chu (朱立倫), said that the two polls simply cannot be compared, Tsai said: “The similarity is that the effectiveness of their administration will be reflected in the results of the elections.”
Presidential Office spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強), meanwhile, said that if there is any lesson the Ma administration could learn from the US elections, it was that it should never be content with its current achievements but should persist in implementing the right policy. The administration understands that there are still a few people who are not satisfied with its performance and that there is still a lot of room for improvement, he said.
However, the government is confident that as long as it keeps on pursuing the right policy, Taiwan will be able to create a new page for the economy, which was in a stalemate over the past eight years because of the former DPP administration’s policy of “locking up the country,” Lo said.
During a meeting with national policy advisers at the Presidential Office yesterday, Ma touted his administration’s efforts to improve the economy and said he was pleased with the government’s efforts to tackle the financial tsunami.
After contracting last year, the economy is expected to expand 8.24 percent this year, the highest in the past 21 years, he said, adding that the unemployment rate last month was forecast to drop to 5.05 percent and could further fall below 5 percent by the end of the year.
Apart from economic recovery, Ma said the administration was increasing care for the disadvantaged, with the Executive Yuan amending the Social Assistance Act (社會救助法) and the legislature’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee approving it on Wednesday.
Once passed by the legislature, more than 850,000 low and medium-income families would receive government subsidies, he said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY KO SHU-LING AND FLORA WANG
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