Source: Direct News
During the Tainan City Council’s election of Speaker and Deputy Speaker, due to the disputes between factions within the Democratic Progressive Party, it once developed into a vicious incident where the underworld intervened and fired 88 shots in the street. This Tainan speaker election gave the Kuomintang the hope of exploiting every opportunity, but the result was a surprise.
A member of the blue camp voted for a candidate from the green camp. What kind of drama is this?
The Democratic Progressive Party, which was in constant internal strife, did not lose a single vote. On the contrary, three members of the Kuomintang, Li Wenjun, Zhang Shixian and Li Zhenguo, ran away to support the DPP speaker candidate Qiu Lili. It has to be said that the DPP’s manipulation of the speaker election was extremely clumsy. After they bribed a sufficient number of KMT members to vote, they also forced those DPP members of the “congress” faction who were preparing to leave to leave, which became meaningless. In the end, they were forced to return to vote in compliance with party discipline.
The betrayed Kuomintang members were eventually dealt with by the Kuomintang party discipline. Among them, Li Zhenguo's membership belonged to the Huang Fuxing Party, the bluest branch of the Kuomintang. Most of his supporters were former military village residents. His betrayal was particularly unforgivable.
And there are rumors that the price to buy out the congressmen this time is extremely high. It is said that if you only vote 1,000 (ten thousand NT dollars) for yourself, 2,000 (ten thousand) for the other party, and tie three votes for 5,000 (ten thousand). There were even rumors that gangsters abducted KMT congressmen on the street and got into their cars for coercion.
The Tainan City Party Headquarters of the Kuomintang held a disciplinary committee and decided to expel Li Wenjun and Zhang Shixian from the party. (Source: Taiwan media)
Tainan is not an isolated case. The same thing happened in the Kaohsiung City Council Speaker election. Kaohsiung City Council has a total of 65 seats. In the November 26 parliamentary election, the Kuomintang won 29 seats and the Democratic Progressive Party 27 seats. Neither blue nor green won a majority, but the Kuomintang has the capital to win.
did not expect that Kuomintang member Zeng Junjie would defect before the election. Zeng Junjie registered as a member of the Kuomintang before the election. After being elected, he announced his resignation from the party and exchanged a deputy speaker seat with the Democratic Progressive Party, so he took a gun and defected to the Democratic Progressive Party.
When the results of the Kaohsiung City Speaker election were announced, Kang Yucheng of the Democratic Progressive Party won the speakership with 35 votes, Lu Shumei, who represented the Kuomintang, won 28 votes, and Non-Party Unity Alliance Zhu Xinqiang won 2 votes. This also means that the DPP will "completely govern" in Kaohsiung in the next four years.
Kuomintang public opinion representative Ke Zhien
In response to this, Lanying Fryer scolded. Ke Zhien, who is running for mayor of Kaohsiung this time, even said that he had no basic moral principles. If he wanted to cooperate with the Democratic Progressive Party, he should not be registered as a KMT member before the election.
Kaohsiung and Tainan have resource exchanges because the Democratic Progressive Party is in power. However, this time the Kuomintang-elected Keelung also experienced a scandal similar to the betrayal of members of its own party. Moreover, the only city councilor who lost votes was Zhang Fangli, a senior city councilor who had been reelected for 8 terms. In addition, after Zhang Jun of Hualien County was re-elected as speaker, he announced his resignation from the party because he was dissatisfied with Fu Kunqi and his wife who were the head of the Hualien family, saying that he was excluded and bullied by the county party headquarters.
Therefore, in this local election on the island, the Democratic Progressive Party won back a victory in this unexpected way. Although the Kuomintang won a big victory in the previous election, it did not expect that it would lose the most speaker seats in the end, which also brought discordant voices to the momentum of the Kuomintang at that time.
The Democratic Progressive Party engages in " black gold politics " The contradictions between the Kuomintang and the Kuomintang highlight
The island implements a representative system. The people elect public opinion representatives who are consistent with their own views and positions to express political opinions on their behalf. Therefore, in theory, the actions of these elected public opinion representatives should not fundamentally violate the public opinion that supports them. Such behavior after being elected as members of the blue camp and then supporting the green camp is a naked betrayal of one's own voters, not to mention the rumors that they were bribed with large sums of money (without enough inducements, it is indeed difficult to explain the betrayal of these congressmen). From this perspective, these betrayers not only lose their qualifications and moral integrity, but also lose the legitimacy to continue to serve as public representatives.
And this kind of thing is a double-edged sword. Although the DPP won the speakership in the most quick and easy way, the truth behind it is very shameful.The DPP lost the support of public opinion in the election, so it bribed public opinion representatives with benefits, once again proving that their so-called "democratic progress" is neither democratic nor progressive, and has even regressed into the so-called " black gold " political tradition that they criticized the Kuomintang in the past.
The Kuomintang expelled the traitorous congressmen. The behavior of these congressmen actually constituted suspicion of accepting bribes and should be investigated by the island's judicial agencies.
Many years ago, there was also a so-called vote-buying controversy involving KMT Speaker Li Quanjiao in Tainan. The then mayor of Tainan, Lai Qingde, refused to cooperate with the Tainan Assembly. Times have changed, and now the Tainan Democratic Progressive Party is repeating its old tactics. Lai Qingde, who stood aside to elect the chairman of the Democratic Party and had a lot of money in the party, selectively ignored Tainan.
Of course, the chaos in the speaker elections in various places has also exposed many problems within the Kuomintang. Because the trend is now improving, it has become more intensified. Including the fact that the Kuomintang central and local governments are incompatible with each other. They lack common ideas and rely more on interests. Therefore, some comrades in the party cannot get rid of the temptations of their opponents.
On the other hand, some Kuomintang members believe that this scene is related to Chairman Zhu Lilun's "Same Boat Plan" in which he summoned the past to leave and expelled party members to return regardless of past suspicions. Critics believe that the plan will make some unscrupulous people no longer fear party discipline, and they will have a chance to return in the future.
Personnel disputes and internal friction The Kuomintang urgently needs to integrate
This year's local elections on the island are generally considered to be the failure of the DPP rather than the victory of the Kuomintang. However, the result is that the political landscape is changing, and the Kuomintang has begun to reverse its past decline. It may be that the opportunity is just around the corner, so the old drama of fighting for power and profit has reappeared, as well as the frictions and quarrels caused by the change of generations within the party. In addition, the 2024 election will start next year, and the internal strife within the party four years ago has begun to vaguely emerge again.
For example, when Chiang Wanan was elected mayor of Taipei, some personnel arrangements caused dissatisfaction among comrades within the party. For example, he appointed media personality Cai Shiping who walks between blue and green as the director of culture, which aroused the criticism of many famous people in the blue camp. They believed that he was following the old path of Ma Ying-jeou and wanted to be the mayor of the whole people, but he ignored the other. The green camp did not buy it, and the blue camp was greatly disappointed.
Some people even more directly believe that when Jiang Wanan was elected, he would not be rewarded based on his merits. Instead, he would reuse unimportant outsiders, which would inevitably chill those who contributed during the election campaign.
Jiang Wanan appointed Lin Yihua, the deputy mayor of the Kuomintang, as deputy mayor, which unexpectedly aroused some opposition. The Kuomintang originally lacked representatives of the people. After Jiang Wanan was elected mayor, the seat was vacated for a by-election. When Lin Yihua became deputy mayor, the seat was also vacated.
Kuomintang public opinion representative Lin Yihua will be transferred to the position of deputy mayor of Taipei City. (File map)
The Kuomintang Central Committee may be afraid of accidents in the by-election, so it asked Lin Yihua to delay taking office as deputy mayor, so that the remaining term of the vacancy would be less than one year without the need for a by-election. Therefore, the DPP criticized Lin for occupying two positions by himself and letting down the public.
In many constituencies of the Kuomintang, public opinion representatives have been re-elected for many terms. Although I am excellent, I cannot stand my age. On the other hand, due to tight control of the position, there are few successors. Coupled with the changes in the political landscape, some blue camps have fewer and fewer winning constituencies, making this internal competitive contradiction more and more prominent.
Kuomintang Taipei City Councilor Xu Qiaoxin. (File map)
It has recently been reported that the KMT Central Committee’s nomination strategy for the 2024 election will give priority to current candidates. This has also greatly dissatisfied some new generations who hope to further their political path. For example, Xu Qiaoxin, who has been very prominent recently, has had some conflicts with Fei Hongtai, the senior democratic representative in this constituency, and these conflicts are quite symbolic.
And who will represent the Kuomintang in selecting regional leaders in 2024 has also begun to trigger discussions. Among them, Hou Youyi is as stable as a mountain, but the polls are getting higher and higher. A famous speaker in the green camp believes that Hou Youyi is brilliant because he is really able to keep his temper and would rather talk nonsense but never say the wrong thing. As he said, Hou's current strategy is indeed effective.
Although Terry Gou said he would not run, he has been taking a lot of action recently. He has published articles criticizing the Democratic Progressive Party government as a "beast in power" and brought up old talk about the introduction of the vaccine in the past. This is almost exactly the same as the way he scolded Xiao Meiqin before participating in the KMT party primary election four years ago.
The biggest mover is Zhao Shaokang, the opinion leader of the blue camp. Zhao Shaokang is a traditional political elite. He does not avoid topics and even actively creates them. Recently, Tsai Ing-wen announced the resumption of military service on the island for one year. Zhao Shaokang bluntly stated that if he is elected, he will continue to maintain the current four-month military service period, and said that "vote for the Democratic Progressive Party, and young people will go to the battlefield."
Unfortunately, the island is now a stratospheric society and a society lacking in thinking. They care more about their stance and are imprisoned by their own stance. So so far, Zhao Shaokang is not accepted by the island society.
Author丨Xu Yi, special editor of Shenzhen Satellite TV Direct News
