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A lesson in democracy for the KMT
Saturday, Feb 27, 2010, Page 8
The tearful announcement by Taipei County Commissioner Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋) that
he will not run for mayor of Sinbei City (新北市) in the year-end special
municipality elections sent shockwaves through Taipei’s political circles. Chou
said he would instead support Vice Premier Eric Chu (朱立倫) for the candidacy.
It is almost unheard of for a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) incumbent to pass
up the chance for re-election. Chou has made a few errors — nothing too glaring,
but he has been a good sight worse than his predecessor, the Democratic
Progressive Party’s (DPP) Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌). Although Chou’s popularity
ratings are similar to those of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), there is strong
support for a Chu candidacy within the party. Either Su or DPP Chairperson Tsai
Ing-wen (蔡英文) would trounce Chou in any election.
Withdrawing his candidacy may not be what Chou himself wanted, and he has
probably been under some pressure. Although he has the advantage of incumbency,
his support in opinion polls has always fallen far behind other possible
candidates, and neither the Presidential Office, the Cabinet nor the KMT think
he stands a chance. Placing last in almost every opinion poll, and with the
media constantly harping on political shows he has put on in the past, he is
looking more and more like a political clown.
Had Chou insisted on running for mayor of Sinbei City, he would have destroyed
all his chances with the KMT and his political future. By withdrawing, he will
no longer have to go hat in hand, begging for support, and instead the
Presidential Office, the government and the party will now have to look to him
for assistance. Ma has even said Chou will be “rewarded” in the future, and that
would never have happened without his decision to withdraw from the election.
Chou’s decision is also a lesson in democracy for the authoritarian KMT. In the
past, nominees had to look to the party center for guidance, rather than voters,
when making decisions. No matter how bad their performance, as long as a
candidate had the party leadership’s support, or if an incumbent threatened to
run as an independent, they would be nominated. In the run-up to the Sinbei
election, opinion polls have influenced who has been asked to step down and who
has been asked to run, so incumbents can no longer be assured of a chance to run
for re-election. All elected officials must now work hard for the public’s
approval to have the opportunity to run for re-election.
This does not necessarily mean that the KMT’s nomination process will be either
democratic or transparent. A look at Kaohsiung and Tainan, two difficult areas
for the KMT, shows that the information coming out from the party as to who will
run for mayor is constantly changing. This makes it clear that the KMT
leadership is still deciding who is nominated, rather than taking a democratic
approach and allowing anyone who is interested to compete for the public’s
approval.
In the run-up to the year-end elections, both the KMT and the DPP are faced with
an awkward situation where those willing to run have little or no chance of
winning, while those who could win have no interest in running. The first
stumbling block on the road to victory is finding a way to nominate a winning
candidate through democratic procedures. A party whose nomination process
ignores democratic procedures will no longer have much of a chance of winning an
election.
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