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EDITORIAL: Weak
leadership mars Taipei
Critics have accused the central government of poor governance and an arrogance
that has fostered widespread public apathy. However, such criticism is perhaps
closer to the mark when directed at the Taipei City Government and the failure
of Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) to achieve anything of note over the past
five years.
The latest example of this ineptitude was revealed during recent personnel
reshuffles of Hau’s team. Former commissioner of the Department of Cultural
Affairs, Hsieh Hsiao-yun (謝小韞), and head of the Education Department, Kang
Tzong-hu (康宗虎), resigned as a result of alleged corruption in the management of
the Taipei Fine Arts Museum and the problematic tri-school entrance exam policy
respectively.
Hau’s original pick for the one of the three deputy mayor positions, former
Taipei City Secretariat Office director Yang Hsi-an (楊錫安), declined the offer
two weeks ago amid his alleged involvement in a construction scandal.
These three individuals are among 16 out of 37 top-level city officials to have
left Hau’s team since he was re-elected last year. Frequent reshuffles
demonstrate not only the mayor’s lack of wisdom, but also the ill-conceived
decision-making process used to find qualified candidates to run the capital.
The lack of well-known figures in Hau’s team reveals the limited talent pool in
which he is fishing. Indeed, most top city officials served under Hau during his
term as head of the Environmental Protection Administration. In other words, he
has been unable or unwilling to seek out a more diverse range of opinions in the
policy-making process. The public are left with the impression that Hau leads an
arrogant team that continually fails to address the needs of Taipei residents.
For example, his insistence on implementing the tri-city high school entrance
exam policy sparked opposition from many parents and students who said the new
policy would only add to the burden on students. Kang resigned over the policy
this month, but the mayor blamed the controversy on the miscalculation of
admission scores and refused to cancel next year’s exam.
Hau’s arrogance and indifference to public sentiment also showed in the planned
relocation of scores of food stalls at the Shihlin Night Market to a renovated
building in November.
The relocation, in which about 100 food venders will move into a basement,
attracted complaints from both vendors and residents who warned that an
air-conditioned underground food court would undermine the appeal of the popular
night market. Several thousand netizens expressed their opposition to the plan
on Hau’s Facebook page.
The mayor once again chose to ignore public frustration and declared his
determination to relocate the food stalls according to the original schedule.
Although Hau has bragged about the increase in the number of Chinese tourists,
the city’s level of internationalization has plummeted while the mayor focuses
on city-to-city diplomacy with Shanghai and other cities in China.
Compared to his predecessors — former presidents Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and Chen
Shui-bian (陳水扁) and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) — Hau has done little to raise
Taipei’s international profile, and his lack of charisma make it unlikely that
he will win any higher elected office. His easy victory in last year’s Taipei
mayoral election proved only that that Taipei remains a Chinese Nationalist
Party (KMT) stronghold.
Ma has been accused of being incapable. As the leader of the nation’s capital,
Hau is not only incompetent, but arrogant as well, and the people who suffer as
a result are the residents of Taipei. Hopefully, they have learned their lesson
and will look beyond party lines when they choose the next mayor.
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