Politicians May Need to Step Back to Go Forward

By Paul Lin 林保華, translated by Anna Stiggelbout

RECENT TV COMMERCIALS by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) make me worry about Taiwan's future. How can it be OK for the KMT to use its party assets to distort facts? It professes to love Taiwan while making it look bad. Its ideology is pro-China and anti-Taiwan.

Look at their claim that the economy is so bad people can't make ends meet. China sees tens of thousands of mass uprisings a year; Taiwan does not. Using a scorched earth tactic, the pan-blue legislative majority blocks the budgets that would develop Taiwan's economy and national security, and then blames the government for being ineffective.

Then they say that Taiwan must therefore unify with China.

Should Taiwan really become a part of China, an empire of lies?

Unfair aspects of the election system were abolished after the authoritarian era ended, such as electoral district divisions and the KMT using its party assets to secure votes. The strong influence the party still has over the judiciary makes the elections extremely difficult for the pro-localization democratic pan-green camp. No matter how hard it tries, it cannot win a legislative majority. It would be a catastrophe for Taiwan if the KMT, which works closely with Beijing, won a two-thirds legislative majority.

The cooperation between the pro-China New Party and the forces in the KMT supporting former chairman Lien Chan's (連戰) call to cooperate with China to prevent Taiwanese independence are signs of China's influence. The huge funds China uses to win over Taiwan's diplomatic allies is clearly aimed at helping the KMT create an image of the government as diplomatically incapable.

Taiwan is the only democratic country in the world that has a presidential candidate like the KMT's Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who calls on voters to give up their democratic rights to vote in a referendum.

Is he a fit candidate for a democratic country?

Facing such a grim outlook, the pan-green politicians must consider their options.

To win votes, candidates need to mobilize the public and appeal to moderate voters. But pan-green voters also face the problem of whom to vote for, as pan-green politicians are competing against each other. It's not easy to accumulate enough votes to win a legislative seat, but with candidates attacking each other, tens of thousands of votes are lost to the green camp if one of them loses, and then the legislative seat is lost.

Two years ago, the Democratic Progressive Party won the Kaohsiung mayoral elections by a razor-thin margin, resulting in a year of lawsuits. What if the party had lost those few thousands ballots?

Pan-green politicians competing against each other -- regardless of what party they represent or how well they are doing in polls -- must take the initiative to step back and give their votes and their support to the opposing pan-green candidate. At first this might seem to mean throwing away one's political future, but it will benefit the pan-green camp and all of Taiwan. In any case, it is far more preferable to letting a pro-Chinese party win these seats.

Doing so would create more room for Taiwan and take a candidate out of a difficult situation while showing him or her as open-minded, sensible and democratic, thus creating new possibilities for future elections.

Politicians need to move the public. Whoever steps back to make way for another pan-green candidate will move both his or her own voters and those in other districts, showing them that pan-green politicians truly fight for Taiwan's future and not for themselves or for partisan benefits. Taiwanese will remember a candidate stepping back for the greater good.

Paul Lin is a political commentator based in Taiwan.