A recruit died while undergoing rigorous basic training in the boot camp in 1987.His family wanted to know how he died and why, of course.They appealed for a thorough investigation to find out if the soldier, who had complained of severe headache and asked for leave, was not duly examined by a boot camp surgeon and whether that was the cause of death.
The only channel open to the family to make that appeal heard was a ubiquitous “public service station” of the ruling Kuomintang.So they went to see the low-level Kuomintang apparatchik supervising the station.After hearing their complaint, the station supervisor blurted out:“Why don’t you go ask for help from the Democratic Progressive Party?”
That best summed up what practically every Hoklo and Hakka in Taiwan, including that low-level Kuomintang worker, thought of the party, which had been inaugurated without President Chiang Ching-kuo lifting martial law.It was a party regarded as the guardian angel of the people who believed they were persecuted by the autocratic Kuomintang government.
Twenty years on, the DPP was a ruined party, which its factional leaders are struggling against each other to lead as its chairman back to power it has just lost.
The DPP has made indelible contributions to Taiwan’s democratization.Without its forceful appeal – often with action like a huge mass rally in Kaohsiung on World Human Rights Day in 1979 – Chiang Ching-kuo’s democratization from top down could not have gotten under way.President Lee Teng-hui continued the democratization under continued pressure from the opposition party, which did not hesitate to resort to violent bodily clashes on the floor of the Kuomintang-dominated Legislative Yuan.Democracy triumphed in 2000 when Chen Shui-bian was elected president, completing the first transfer of power in Taiwan to end more than five decades of one-party rule by the Kuomintang.
Chen’s victory, however, marked the beginning of the fall of his Democratic Progressive Party.Power corrupts.In eight years of his rule, he acquired all but absolute power, which corrupts absolutely, ruining his ruling party in the process.He had to lead his party to victory in every election, local as well as national, so that he could stay in power.To consolidate his power base, he had to manipulate the feud between the Chinese mainlanders and the native Hoklo and Hakka to his election advantage in the guise of independence for Taiwan.
The DPP was and still is, at least nominally, a revolutionary party.Its ultimate goal is to make Taiwan an independent sovereign state of the native islanders, albeit not openly excluding the mainlanders, those ethnic Chinese migrants to Taiwan after 1945 and their offspring born and brought up on the island.That tactic – pitting the “quasi-colonial émigré regime” against the oppressed native islanders – worked wonders in election after election until the last years of President Chen’s rule.The ruling party lost three important elections in a row.It managed to win only seven out of the 21 cities and counties across the country at the end of 2005.The opposition Kuomintang won a three-fourths majority in the nation’s highest legislative organ on last January 12. Frank Hsieh, its standard-bearer, was routed by Ma Ying-jeou on March 22.
Hsieh did not resign as DPP chairman outright, trying to hold together the tattered party until May 25 when a national congress will be called to elect his successor.He did not rule out possibilities of his replacing himself, while President Chen, who has to step down on May 20, is maneuvering to remain a kingmaker from behind the scenes.Yu Shyi-kung openly dismissed himself as the next chairman of the now opposition party, but is secretly doing what he can to step into Hsieh’s shoes.Su Tseng-chang, Hsieh’s running mate, has started stumping the party’s traditional strongholds to take back the job he was forced to give up after the election fiasco of 2005.
None of them seems capable of piecing together the shattered party back into a credible and viable political group which is needed for checks and balances in the face of the now all-powerful Kuomintang for the good of Taiwan’s democracy.
The first task the party is facing to rehabilitate itself is to get back its snow-white clean image it used to enjoy before it came to power.Its new chairman must be a Mr. Clean in and out.Can any of the contenders claim he has that qualification?
Moreover, the new chairman has to have a sense of mission and the ability to carry it out to effect a comeback to power.Independence for Taiwan may be his mission, but he has to convince the people that independence is the only option open to them in the foreseeable future.It’s a mission absolutely impossible.
On the other hand, Ma’s landslide victory has instilled fear in the public that the Kuomintang might return to its former pompous and arrogant self.They are afraid it may follow in the footsteps of the now down and trodden Democratic Progressive Party.Well, likely.Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Even only to prevent that possible eventuality, the Kuomintang needs a watchful opposition party, no matter how small it may be.
At its inception, the Democratic Progressive Party was a young David and the Kuomintang an old Goliath.The aging giant was almost mortally wounded, if not slain, in a little more than a dozen years, and is returning to power like a reinvigorated phoenix.The people of Taiwan hope someone other than those old faces who has a vision and leadership will rebuild the DPP as a better, cleaner and more vigorous opposition party.It is needed to forestall the repetition of the fall and decline of the Democratic Progressive Party.
（本文刊載於97.04.07 China Post第4版，本文代表作者個人意見）
