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On a King’s shoulders lie KMT’s
aspirations
By Li Kuan-long 李坤隆
Saturday, Feb 13, 2010, Page 8
The way President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) recently rushed King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) into
the job of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) secretary-general to try to reverse
his rapidly falling approval ratings has been the topic of much debate. Given
King’s skill and intelligence, the KMT should be able to put up a decent fight
in the year-end special municipality elections, if King and the KMT can first
lower themselves before local powers.
I say this because under Ma’s leadership, the KMT’s strategy has been to
nominate only their strongest party members as candidates in any election,
regardless of these candidates chances of winning.
The result has been a string of electoral defeats, which has caused a backlash
among local party members and become a hindrance to the KMT. This has not only
reduced the KMT’s overall power, it could also directly influence the 2012
presidential election.
Surely, this prospect must worry Ma — and his supporters.
As King tries to win over local factions, he will discover that he cannot afford
to offend them and that even if he cannot get them to offer him any real
assistance, he cannot let them become a counterproductive force to his and the
KMT’s interests.
King will not do direct battle with local powers, because Ma’s approval rating
is already very low and the president will not be reelected in 2012 if the KMT
loses support in local constituencies.
Of course, the KMT will still try and distance itself from “black gold” on the
surface in local constituencies, but they will not make a direct break because
Ma needs these factions for his presidential campaign.
If they suddenly went over to the Democratic Progressive Party, the KMT would be
in huge trouble.
Therefore, I believe King will skillfully merge with local forces and at least
try and minimize the chances of these factions joining the enemy camp.
For, after all, in politics there are no eternal friends or enemies; there are
only those capable of serving one’s political interests at any given time.
Perhaps such a merger will attract public criticism, but elections are
result-driven and as long as Ma is reelected, such criticism will gradually be
silenced. In the same way, the criticism will mean nothing to those involved if
Ma fails to win reelection.
This line of thinking is most obvious in the south where local and national
forces are now opposed to each other.
There have been recent reports that KMT bigwigs such as Vice Premier Eric Chu
(朱立倫), Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強)
may head south to help improve the KMT’s chances in the special municipality
elections.
So far, it appears there is no chance they will actually do so.
Such rumors could very well mean that the KMT can no longer find suitable
candidates to help their election chances in the south.
Under these circumstances, local factions have a greater opportunity to come to
the fore. It will also be worth paying attention to whether the KMT abandons the
south to consolidate its strength and chances for victory in Taichung and the
north.
Even if this is the case, the KMT must still avoid a total collapse, and so it
has to put up a good fight lest all its chances in the presidential election
vanish into thin air.
The KMT will therefore pay lip service to its ideals during the special
municipality elections, while being forced to tacitly bow to local factions.
Li Kuan-long is a lecturer at the Kaohsiung campus of Shih
Chien University.
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