Arrogant Ma suffered another fatal blow(2009-12-09)
Arrogant Ma suffered another fatal blow
On January 9, Taiwan’s ruling Kuomintang (KMT) suffered another setback as it lost all three seats in the legislative by-elections to the main opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). DPP candidate Lai Kun-cheng won the first-ever legislative seat in the eastern county for the opposition party,
President Ma Ying-jeou appointed King Pu-Tsung as the KMT Secretary- General after the Dec. 5 setback, hoping that his most trusted right-hand man could help the party turn around in upcoming crucial elections. It is well-known that Mr. King is the spin-doctor for Ma since the later ran successfully for Mayor of Taipei in 1998. After the defeat last week, King said the party will learn a lesson from the failure To reverse the fortune, King will have to work overtime to try and put a positive spin on this one as the losses have proved again that voters have yet to regain confidence in Ma and the party he leads amid widespread belief that he is incompetent. Ma is extremely unpopular in Taiwan now; even the candidates shunned his help during campaigns .
As DPP gaining momentum, KMT will face more challenges next month in yet another round of legislative by-elections, and crucial races at the end of the year for the top posts of five special municipalities.
The latest gains will allow the DPP to have one-fourth of the total seats in the Legislature — which will give it power to propose constitutional amendments and to launch a recall of the president. DPP leaders indicated that they will refrain from using this power indiscriminately.
Ma’s unpopularity was not only reflected by the results of January 9 election. Last week Ma’s KMT dominated Legislative Yuan (LY) voted against his US beef protocol agreement; a bad sign for the President when his own party even turns against him. But the heavy-handed, secret dealings of Ma were too much even for them. Premier Wu Den-yih said that they “assumed” that people would just go along and support their patronizing paternalism. Unfortunately that is not what participative democracy is all about.
Since Ma became the president, he and his cronies embraced “One –China” principle and down-graded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Ma has continually vowed that he will defend the nation’s sovereignty to the end. Nevertheless he pushes the nation into economic dependency on the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and prevents the nation’s flag from being flown lest it be seen by and offend China’s Chen Yunlin when he visits. Further the people watched Ma acquiesce to be called Mr. Ma , rather than Mr. President , by the same Chen.
Now, they are pushing ECFA for the economic dependency on China. So far the government has not used any language, let alone plain language in explaining ECFA. No one knows what is in this alleged “transparent” package. All Ma’s people have said so far is, “We have a blank check for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and we want you to sign it.” Ma’s arrogance and aloofness has offended many people in Taiwan.
As shown by recent election results, because people have had enough of Ma, DPP is climbing up from the ashes after a series of defeats in major elections since 2007, including the crushing defeat in 2008 presidential election. Today, DPP is in a better position to check the KMT's dominance of the Legislature. It is good for Taiwan’s fledgling democracy to have two parties with nearly equal strength. DPP must not squander away any gains in recovery so far because of its in-fighting.
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