Incoming Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) would be taking over a party full of old wounds, and her main challenge is to rebuild the KMT and political trust, an academic said on Sunday.
Cheng on Saturday won the party chairperson election with 65,122 votes, or 50.15 percent of the vote.
She is to succeed incumbent Eric Chu (朱立倫) on Saturday next week for a four-year term.
Photo: Chen Yi-kuan, Taipei Times
The KMT not only must contend with division and an aging membership, but a structural problem which emphasizes top-down obedience, hierarchy and a reliance on closed-door negotiations, said Du Sheng-tsung (杜聖聰), chair of Ming Chuan University’s Department of Radio and Television.
The KMT has a political DNA that evolved from a Leninist-style revolutionary party system, making any reformer inside the party feel like they are “breathing in a stone chamber,” he said.
If Cheng wants to advocate for change, she has to confront two enemies: the party’s systemic inertia and the party factions’ need for self-preservation, Du said.
She would be on precarious footing, as the party’s resource allocation and policy priorities are tied up with local factions, he said.
She has to avoid repeating the mistakes of former KMT chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), who attempted to redefine the political narrative of “the Republic of China in Taiwan,” but ultimately became isolated and lost support, Du said.
Without a strong political acumen and broad coordination, Cheng could find her authority confined to her office, he added.
If her team does not reshape the narrative, but merely plays defense, the KMT’s cross-strait role could completely devolve into a historical relic, he said.
The political trust that her team has to rebuild involves addressing deep-blue voters’ loyalty concerns, local factions’ pragmatic calculations, younger voters’ emotional disconnect with politics and the Democratic Progressive Party’s fortified media narrative, he said.
Any one of these forces could derail her leadership, he said.
She faces not only a political test, but a quest for a third path centered on trust and generations, he said.
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