My Take | Taiwan opposition has shot itself — and the island — in the foot
- The KMT and TPP, by failing to field a joint ticket for the presidential poll, have effectively allowed the secessionist DPP to retain power
Christmas has come early for Taiwan’s DPP. The Democratic Progressive Party had an existential angst for a few weeks after the opposition parties threatened to run a joint ticket in the January presidential election.
But, as many of us had feared, the opposition leaders were just too petty and narrow-minded to get their act together. They couldn’t agree who would lead on the ticket, and so ended up registering for the election separately.
Repeated polls have shown Vice-President Lai Ching-te of the DPP as the leading candidate without a joint ticket from the opposition, though the latest poll indicates the gaps have closed significantly. But if Ko Wen-je of the upstart populist Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and Hou Yu-ih of the grandaddy Kuomintang (KMT) had joined hands, they had a good chance of winning.
A three-way race will favour Lai and his running mate Hsiao Bi-khim, a former de facto representative of Taiwan in the United States. Both are card-carrying advocates of independence for the island. If they win, we are looking at some interesting times ahead.
Opposition leaders have framed the coming poll as a choice between war and peace with mainland China, and yet they refused to compromise for the sake of the Chinese people. The speed with which both men found a running mate to register before the poll deadline – Ko with lawmaker Cynthia Wu Hsin-ying of the powerful family behind the Shin Kong Group, and Hou with pro-China media boss Jaw Shaw-kong – meant neither side took the joint ticket plan seriously enough beyond being an expedient way to win.
As it turned out, Foxconn tycoon Terry Gou did the honourable thing and bowed out, instead of stealing votes from the opposition and effectively handing the presidency to the DPP.