Lacking a legislative majority, President William Lai (賴清德) is facing a tough fight to nominate the next Taiwan Foundation for Democracy chief executive, stymieing the leadership succession at the main organization handling the nation’s unofficial global outreach programs.
Then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in 2003 established the foundation as a subordinate body under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, passing the measure through a fractious opposition-led Legislative Yuan.
Chen decided to appoint then-legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) as foundation chairman, a compromise that secured the opposition’s support for a DPP chief executive officer, then-vice minister of foreign affairs Michael Kau (高英茂).
Photo: Lo Pei-de, Taipei Times
In an act that recognized the president’s prerogative over diplomacy, Wang later lent his support to Kau’s successor, Lin Wen-cheng (林文程), an academic tapped by the Chen administration to head the foundation.
Today’s impasse over choosing the foundation’s next chief executive could have been avoided if KMT Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) had respected the precedents set by Chen and Wang.
The seeds of the deadlock were laid when Han insisted on his prerogative to nominate the chief executive officer, contradicting a previous agreement between the government and the opposition that the board members should elect the chief executive.
Han was within his rights to tap a candidate without consultation, but doing so inevitably invited a logjam because the foundation board — not its chairman — has the power to approve the appointment of the chief executive.
The DPP appointed nine of the board’s 15 members, with the KMT and Taiwan People’s Party appointees accounting for the remaining six, giving the ruling party a decisive majority.
After nominating National Chengchi University diplomatic studies professor Lu Yeh-chung (盧業中) — who was unlikely to pass muster anyway — Han then abstained from the weekly board meeting, preventing a vote from being held.
Han might have been lobbied by his circle of advisers into throwing his support behind Lu not to appoint him as chief executive, but to sabotage the foundation, sources familiar with the matter said.
China has long deemed the foundation a thorn in its side, as demonstrated by its inclusion in Beijing’s list of sanctioned people and entities announced in 2022 following then-US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.
However, Han’s intransigence is not likely to affect the outcome in the long term. With the KMT’s relative weakness on the board, the party’s attempt to muscle a candidate past DPP objections is almost certain to fail.
The foundation’s charter also authorizes its deputy executive officer, Liao Dachi (廖達琪) — a DPP appointee — to head the foundation in the absence of a chief executive officer, a responsibility she has already assumed.
That means the DPP can ignore Han’s objections indefinitely without jeopardizing the foundation’s operations.
Additional reporting by Lin Hsin-han
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