文/Xu Yi
Cai Laipei has been brewing for a long time, but all the time he only heard the sound of the stairs and no one came down. Even a few hours before the press conference, Tsai and Lai remained silent when asked about their collaboration. Tsai Ing-wen also said, "Don't hunt me down like this." The word "hunt" has a profound meaning. One day before the announcement with the Kuomintang Han Zhang Pei, Zhang Shanzheng told reporters I do. In comparison, they are in contrast to each other, because the latter goes along with the flow, while the former is as reluctant as possible.
Cai Lai was in the party's primary election at that time, and Lai Qingde lost the competition, so he left the country and went into hiding, making almost no political action. Until recently, Cai Laipei kept whispering. Lai Qingde's disciple Lin Junxian used the Cai Lai union sign as the first shot to release the news, making the topic of the two matching up gradually becoming a reality. Lam and Lai Ching-te were close friends before they entered politics. During the fierce battle in the primary election for Cai Lai, Lai Qingde, who was regarded as the young leader of the new trend, was immediately abandoned by the faction. Only Lin Junxian persisted and fought for Lai Qingde almost single-handedly. As a result, almost 10% of the DPP is alone. After the news of Cai Laipei was released this time, Lin Junxian immediately became active again. In order to build momentum, he focused on cracking down on the Han Guoyu mansion case, and he did not hesitate to become a thug and hand over certificates for Cai Laipei.
Tsai Ing-wen went to Tainan on November 2 to attend the inauguration meeting of her joint campaign headquarters with DPP "legislator" Lin Junxian (right). Lai Qingde (left) also appeared at the meeting. This is the first time that Tsai and Lai are in the party It was the first time since the preliminary selection that they were in the same frame.
There is an undercurrent of struggle for power within the Democratic Progressive Party, especially Su Zhenchang and Su Jiaquan. After Chen Jianren announced that he would no longer seek a deputy in the future, this was to leave a place for Lai Qingde. After Lai Qingde left regardless. However, Su Jiaquan followed up and announced that he would no longer serve as the "Legislative President" and had the intention to adjust his position. On the other hand, Su Zhenchang is ready to take action, regardless of the principle of administrative neutrality, and fight against Han Guoyu in order to seek the right to speak in the DPP.
Some analysts said that Su Zhenchang's goal is to be the deputy position. Because the election ends next year, if Tsai Ing-wen is elected, Su's team will resign. Tsai Ing-wen is actually using Su Zhenchang to put out fires. In the next four years, there will be no election pressure, so she may not continue to use it. Su Zhenchang might as well seek the position of deputy because he can do it for four years. But obviously, this attempt failed.
After the disastrous defeat of the "nine-in-one" election, Su Zhenchang (right) succeeded Lai Qingde (left) as the "Executive President"
Initially, Tsai Ing-wen hoped to have Lai Qingde as his deputy, because Tsai has never been favored by the "independence faction", and Lai Qingde He is the young leader of the "independence faction", so he can just integrate and take advantage of the situation. But Lai Ching-te flatly refused and started a new campaign to run against Tsai Ing-wen to qualify for the election. In a primary election, the two hurt each other deeply. For Tsai, he had hit rock bottom at that time and was attacked by his own "Executive Yuan". His anger was undisguised. Tsai Ing-wen is not the opponent of Lai Qingde in the polls. But Tsai Ing-wen was stunned and waited for a change to reverse the situation. In the primary election, it can also be seen that Lai Qingde is actually a very rigid person. Faced with Tsai Ing-wen's repeated cheating, he had almost no countermeasures and just passively suffered the beating until he lost.
But even so, the two can still work together as an army. The DPP's integration ability is indeed not comparable to the KMT. After the primary election of the Kuomintang, Zhu Lilun refused to take over as deputy, and Terry Gou even left the party.
In the 2020 election, the Kuomintang was elected by Kaohsiung Mayor Han Guoyu (left), and the People's Party was elected by party chairman James Soong (middle) to challenge the DPP Tsai Ing-wen (right)
Tsai Ing-wen actually came from the government system, 200 He joined the DPP in 4 years because he was appointed as a non-districting "legislator" by the DPP. By 2006, the DPP fell to the bottom due to Chen Shui-bian's corruption case. He became seriously ill and went to the doctor indiscriminately. He supported Tsai, who is a rich girl. Ing-wen is the chairman of the party and is trying to survive. Little did she know that Tsai Ing-wen was very lucky. At the time when the Kuomintang was losing power, the DPP continued to grow until the regime changed. Even so, Tsai Ing-wen has always been regarded as unideal by many DPP bosses. Some people think that Tsai Ing-wen is just a transitional plan, and she is full of ridicule both inside and outside her words.Cai was also very upset about this. During his term of office, he did not accept the price demanded by the "independence faction". This also led to the rebellion of the "independence faction" in this election.
Tsai Ing-wen's current opinion polls are strong, so she doesn't care about Lai Qingde's blessing. What's more, during the primary election, Tsai Ing-wen had great opinions on Lai. When Tsai Laipei was proposed, Tsai Ing-wen was not active. But the DPP is indeed a powerful electoral machine. After losing like that last year, this year Tsai Ing-wen was still able to overtake Lai Qingde and Han Guoyu, two targets she had originally lost by a large margin. The core secret is to only look at success or failure, not personal emotions. Tsai Ing-wen can use Su Zhenchang, who previously vowed not to cooperate with her again, as the "Executive President", let alone Lai Qingde.
For the Democratic Progressive Party, no matter how out of place the "independence faction" is, appeasing the "independence faction" is also a necessary step. In particular, Tsai Ing-wen has received the biggest attack this year, such as the fake academic degree case, which was launched by the "independence faction". Therefore, preventing the "independence faction" from making any more troubles is also the reason why Cai Laipei can take shape. This is also the result of the actuarial calculations of the DPP. Even though the current election situation seems to be going well, we still have to guard against arrogance and impetuosity, and do not dare to be careless and lose Jingzhou. Everything will be carried out according to the best arrangements. From this point of view, Lai Qingde, who said nothing after losing the election, is far better than Su Jiaquan and Su Zhenchang, who are fighting each other and making themselves look ugly these days.
"Legislative Yuan" Su Jiaquan was once active and was considered to want to be Tsai's deputy.
Lai Qingde was regarded by the "independence faction" as the third generation figure after Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian. , so people joke that Lai Qingde is the "golden grandson of Taiwan independence." Lai is also the first person to openly claim to be a "pragmatic Taiwan independence worker" in Taiwan's highest public opinion organization. political landscape and lack of common sense. Even some analysts from the Democratic Progressive Party feel that it is impossible for Lai Qingde to go further. Because he is not only a troublemaker, but also has a stubborn personality and does not know how to hide his edge. Even compared to Chen Shui-bian, he is not even as flexible as Chen Zhi.
When Lai Ching-te was the mayor of Tainan, he clashed with KMT Speaker Li Quanjiao and even refused to go to the parliament for consultation for up to a year. During this period, municipal work was greatly affected, which once caused the epidemic of dengue fever in Tainan. Last year, the nine-in-one Democratic Progressive Party was defeated, and Lai Qingde resigned as "Executive President" to show his responsibility (he accepted Tsai Ing-wen's condolences for a period of time because of the budget). Then he suddenly decided to compete with Tsai Ing-wen. During this period, many senior leaders of the Democratic Progressive Party tried to persuade him to quit, but Lai Qingde ignored them all. Keep running until you hit the wall. His stubborn character is also evident.
Lai Ching-te was favored by the "independence faction". Guo Beihong's "Happy Island Connection" and other "independence faction" organizations initially wanted to support Lai Ching-te to go it alone, but Lai surrendered and remained unmoved. In fact, these "independence factions" are also very weak. Judging from the situation where Annette Annette later signed less than half of them, if Lai Qingde really joined forces with them, it would be real political suicide.
Now that Lai Qingde is recruiting Tsai Ing-wen, it can be regarded as the Tsai government's appeasement to the "independence faction". Especially after the failure of Lu Xiulian's joint signature, it can be regarded as releasing the goodwill of integrating the "independence faction" and returning to the team. As a side note, Annette Lu recently said that the failure of the joint signature was due to internal sabotage. Comparing this with the current news about Cai Laipei's success, it can be seen that everyone among them has their own agenda. Wu Zijia, chairman of Formosa Electronic News, always ridicules these pro-independence factions as "commercial Taiwan independence". The focus is on business, not "Taiwan independence".
Lai Qingde is already sixty years old this year, which is not too old for a political figure. However, judging from the DPP’s political map, Lai Qingde’s future is already very embarrassing. On the one hand, the new generation of successors Zheng Wencan, Lin Jialong, and Chen Qimai have matured. Especially for junior eight-year-old Zheng Wencan, who not only has the strength, but also has a close relationship with Tsai Ing-wen. On the other hand, Lai Qingde’s extreme ideas have also made him a relatively marginalized figure in the DPP. Being paired with Tsai Ing-wen this time may be the best arrangement for Lai.
Lai Ching-te and Tsai Ing-wen have many different political opinions. In addition to Lai's more radical cross-strait approach, Lai also advocates a "cabinet system" that makes leaders vacuous and releases Chen Shui-bian. So Chen Shui-bian asked Lai Qingde in the live broadcast, if Cai Lai's wife is really formed, Lai Qingde, how will you implement your proposal. In short, let me go or not. It is estimated that Lai Qingde did not respond to these questions.
