Zhuo Rongtai
Taiwan Network reported on January 7 (Reporter Wu Shenglin of Straits Newspaper, Text/Internet Photo) Tsai Ing-wen resigned as chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party due to a disastrous defeat in the "nine-in-one" election. Yesterday, the Democratic Progressive Party held a by-election vote for the party chairman.
Last night, Acting Chairman of the DPP, Lin Youchang, held a press conference to announce the election results, and determined that the "Secretary-General" of the Taiwan authorities' administrative agency Zhuo Rongtai won with 24,699 votes and a vote rate of 72.6%; You Yinglong, chairman of the Taiwan "People's Opinion Foundation", had only 9,323 votes and a vote rate of 27.4%.
According to regulations, Zhuo Rongtai will continue Tsai Ing-wen's remaining term, taking office as soon as January 23, 2019 and ending on May 20, 2020.
How to interpret the results of the Democratic Progressive Party Chairman’s by-election this time? What impact will Zhuo Rongtai win the election have on the Democratic Progressive Party’s 2020 “two-in-one” election? Last night, a reporter from the Guide called Chen Songshan, a well-known Taiwanese current affairs commentator and former director of Chen Shui-bian's office, to provide an in-depth interpretation of the related issues.
Don’t want to be destroyed. DPP’s Middle Ages “Saving Self”
Guide Reporter: DPP suffered a crushing defeat in the “nine-in-one” election held not long ago. Under the current circumstances, do you think Zhuo Rongtai is the best candidate to lead the DPP to reflect and reform? How do you comment on the results of the DPP’s party chairman by-election?
Chen Songshan: The by-election of the DPP’s party chairman can be said to be a “self-rescue movement” of the “Mesozoic” politicians within the DPP. In other words, Zhuo Rongtai's campaign for the party chairman and was finally elected was the result of the joint promotion of the party's cross- factionalism. The participants in the joint promotion include Taoyuan Mayor Zheng Wencan, former CPPCC Chen Chimai, former Taichung Mayor Lin Jialong, Hsinchu Mayor Lin Zhijian, Chiayi County Mayor Weng Zhangliang, Tainan Mayor Huang Weizhe, and Pingtung County Mayor Pan Meng'an. Therefore, under such a background, Zhuo Rongtai's victory in the election was expected.
Guide reporter: How to understand the words "Middle-zodiac generation self-rescue" of the DPP?
Chen Songshan: This "nine-in-one" election was defeated so badly. What should the DPP do in the 2020 "two-in-one" election of Taiwan leaders and the people's representatives, and in the further future? The DPP, the "Mesozoic Generation" in their forties and fifties, jointly promoted Zhuo Rongtai to run for the party chairman. The first is to hope to cooperate "beyond factions" to avoid further internal friction and maintain internal unity. The second is to hope to transcend the thinking of Su Zhenchang and Tsai Ing-wen, and reflect and reform the DPP. The overall starting point of these "Mesozoic Era" is to "save the party". We hope that the DPP can reorganize its team to face 2020, but it is also considering its own future. After all, if the DPP fails, the political future of these people will basically be destroyed.
is recommended by factions as a group of "big brother" Zhuo Rongtai is very strong
Guide reporter: Then why is the result of the launch of Zhuo Rongtai, who was not yet visible before?
Chen Songshan: Zhuo Rongtai has a relatively harmonious personality and a relatively soft figure. He is good at coordination and compromise. In addition, his political experience and experience are relatively complete. According to the long-term traditional style of "fellow factional governance" and "unity and foreign countries" within the Democratic Progressive Party, he is the most easily accepted by various factions.
Guide reporter: You were the director of Chen Shui-bian's office and have a deep understanding of the political ecology of the DPP. Can you give a detailed introduction to Zhuo Rongtai's political experience?
Chen Songshan: Zhuo Rongtai and the DPP are all from the island's student movement, but he was a relatively early political career and was the first soldier of Xie Changting, the former head of the Taiwan administrative agency. Therefore, he is called the "big brother". He has a much more experienced experience than the current "Xie Group" soldiers such as Guan Biling, Yao Wenzhi, Li Junqi, Zhao Tianlin, etc. When Chen Shui-bian was in power, Zhuo Rongtai served as the "Deputy Secretary-General" of the Taiwan Leaders' Office. After Tsai Ing-wen became the party chairman, Zhuo Rongtai became the deputy secretary-general of the Democratic Progressive Party as the representative of the "Xie Group". During the same period, the other two deputy secretary-generals were Hong Yaofu, who was more in the "Beautiful Island Group" and Xu Jiaqing, who was more in the " New Trend System ". After Tsai Ing-wen took office, Zhuo Rongtai was promoted to the "Secretary-General" of Taiwan's administrative agency, so he belonged to the "Xie Group" and was classified as a "British Group".This time, Zhuo Rongtai was able to be elected as the party chairman. In addition to his own traits of interacting with various factions and being jointly promoted by various factions, of course, there are also factors that Tsai Ing-wen supports behind him, so he was questioned as a "royal party."
16.9% extremely low turnout rate, he was destined to be the "lone bird" party chairman
Guide reporter: Although Zhuo Rongtai was elected across factions and was elected as the party chairman with a vote of 72.6%, this by-election achieved an extremely low turnout rate of only 16.9%. How do you interpret it?
Chen Songshan: Such a low turnout is because most people in the party believe that Zhuo Rongtai will definitely win You Yinglong, so most counties and cities basically have no mobilization to vote. One thing worth observing is that in this party chairman by-election, the DPP’s iron vote area, Tainan City and Kaohsiung City , the turnout rates were only 10.86% and 7.89% respectively. What does this mean? The DPP’s iron vote troops are unwilling to come out to vote.
Guide reporter: Will such a low turnout affect Zhuo Rongtai’s authority as the party chairman?
Chen Songshan: The authority of the DPP chairman does not depend on whether the party members are willing to vote. The key is whether the DPP’s most important power agencies, namely, the Central Standing Committee and the Central Executive Council, support it. At present, among the 10 members of the Standing Committee, there is no "Xie Group"; among the 30 members of the Executive Committee, there is only one member of the "Xie Group", and it is elected only after being elected by cross- factional joint recommendations. This is destined that Zhuo Rongtai will definitely be the "lone bird-type" party chairman in the future. He must rely on cross- factional cooperation and adopt the "factual co-governance and collective leadership" model.
ensures that Cai is nominated for 2020? It is impossible to "prefer the current position" and only guarantee "fair primary election"
Guide reporter: Since he must adopt "serious governance and collective leadership" in the future, how should he repay Tsai Ing-wen's support, how can he achieve the "royalty" task and ensure that Tsai Ing-wen is nominated by the Democratic Progressive Party in 2020?
Chen Songshan: There is a background here to be understood, that is, when the county mayor nomination for the "nine-in-one" election in 2018, the Central Committee of the DPP passed a so-called "current priority" resolution and was endorsed by the "Percent General Congress". What is "current priority"? In the process of nominating county and city mayors, if the "incumbent" is willing to run for re-election, he does not need to participate in the party's primary election and can directly obtain nomination. This is a resolution to break the rules of the game. After the "nine-in-one" defeat, many people in the DPP were worried that Tsai Ing-wen would play the "current priority" trick again, paving the way for her to run for re-election in 2020. But the problem is that although there is a "current election priority" approach, the DPP's "Nomination Regulations" have not been revised. Therefore, in this party chairman by-election, You Yinglong, who focuses on "anti-Tsai", asked Zhuo Rongtai to stick to the "fair primary election", and the 2020 "general election" nomination cannot "current election first". In this case, Zhuo Rongtai made a commitment to ensure that the 2020 "fair primary election" is followed by the nomination regulations.
Therefore, in the case of "forcing palace" such as Wu Lipei, Peng Mingmin, Gao Junming, and Li Yuanzhe, "receiving re-election" and "replacement of administrative power and retreating to the second line, Zhuo Rongtai's "remaining royalty" task is to help Tsai Ing-wen protect the situation of "unity within the party" and avoid internal strife as much as possible, especially to avoid "forcing palace" by candidates in the party's Mesozoic and Confederate candidates. In this way, although it is impossible to achieve "current priority", Tsai Ing-wen can at least retain the opportunity to participate in the 2020 primary election.
Guide reporter: Then do you think Tsai Ing-wen has a great chance of qualifying if she participates in the primary election?
Chen Songshan: If Tsai Ing-wen insists on running for 2020, probably no one in the DPP is willing to come out to compete with her. Therefore, judging from the current situation, the probability of her representing the DPP in 2020 is still around 70% or 80%.
Lai Ching-te still has a chance in 2020? Tsai Ruo makes another mistake, Lai has a chance
Guide reporter: The "nine-in-one" DPP was defeated so badly, and public opinion believes that Tsai Ing-wen has to bear the greatest responsibility. Her run for election not only means that the DPP's 2020 Taiwan leadership election is more difficult, but even the DPP's election may cause a situation where "a hen stepped on a chicken to death", and the number of seats in the DPP declined even more severely.So why is Lai Ching-te, the head of Taiwan’s administrative agency with a higher poll, unwilling to take the initiative to run for 2020?
Chen Songshan: According to the general evaluation within the DPP, if Tsai Ing-wen runs for 2020, the number of seats for the DPP’s deputies will drop from the current 68 seats to below 30 seats; if Lai Ching-te runs for 2020, the number of seats for the DPP’s deputies will be around 40 seats. But why is Lai Ching-te reluctant to come out to run for election? In addition to the difficulty of winning in 2020, the key is that he and the "New Trends" do not want to bear the charge of "dividing" and do not want to take the blame for losing the election in 2020. After all, if Lai Ching-te takes the initiative to participate in the primary election, it will definitely cause division of the DPP. Therefore, Lai Ching-te’s current idea is to “resign the cabinet” as soon as possible, voluntarily withdraw, and wait and see. Lai Ching-te had been dragged to only half of his life by Tsai Ing-wen, so he had to withdraw himself from healing his wounds.
According to the practice of the DPP, the 2020 candidate for party membership of Taiwan will be determined in April and May this year. Although Lai Ching-te's chance of participating in 2020 is only about 20%, if Tsai Ing-wen makes a mistake in the next two or three months, then the "independence faction" and the Democratic Progressive Party's democratic candidates will definitely jump out and "force the palace". By that moment, if Tsai Ing-wen retreats in a difficult situation, 90% of the party's forces will be strong enough to run for Lai Ching-te in 2020. In this way, even if Lai Ching-te cannot win the 2020 Taiwan leadership election, it can drive the increase in the number of seats of the DPP's democratic representatives and accumulate energy for Lai to run for 2024.
