The Taipei Times is reporting that KMT chairman Wu Po-hsiung is bowing out to let Ma run for party chairmanship, though rumors have been flying that Wu was less than happy with Ma's decision to run and even questioned why he wanted the office.
Taiwan Echo has already covered Ma Ying-jeou's complete reversal on this matter, as before the election he promised not to ever run for party chair while president. But I am reminded that this is not the first time we've seen this debate play out.
Former president Chen Shui-bian promised too, before his first term, to avoid all political party activities including taking the chairmanship; that decision was reversed on July 14, 2002. At that time, the green media was sympathetic to the DPP that this move would help the party govern better and consolidate policy. The DPP even altered its rules at that time to ensure the president would be an automatic party chairman during times the DPP had executive power. Chen left the post after the failure to secure a pan-green majority in the 2004 Legislative Yuan election.
Just as the green media supported Chen's decision to become party chair in 2002 and is now spreading ominous warnings about Ma will bring back the party-state (just check out Liberty Times editorials from earlier this week), you would not be surprised to learn that blue media today is 100% supportive of Ma's decision to take over the party chairmanship, while in 2002 they attacked Chen's reversal as "a new path a-kin to the Chinese Communist Party," an inability to separate party and government and a move toward dictatorship. (the links above, by the way, show the double standards used by blue papers then and now; unfortunately it is tougher to find comparable archives online from green-leaning papers from July 2002).
Knowing the media is too infatuated with their own party identity to give us a reasonable analysis of this issue, what are we to make of it? Does having a president who is also his party's chairman help or hurt the country? Does it help or hurt his party? Does it even matter?
I myself am theoretically in that last camp, and believe the president has tremendous influence even when he is not head of his party. At the same time, in a "hard party" based on the Leninist organizational model like the KMT, I can see why President Ma would want to control the chairmanship to give him power to suppress or diffuse dissent from within his own ranks -- and I can see why that is so scary to so many of us that don't trust the KMT.
But at the end of the day, I still feel this uproar is much ado about nothing. I don't see Ma's taking this office as consequential to party or domestic affairs.
The real different will be that in the future, Ma Ying-jeou and not Wu Po-hsiung will meet with CCP leader Hu Jintao. That will probably not actually change any of the practical outcomes of KMT-CCP discussions, but it will provide a different level of symbolism for those meetings.
SUMMARY: Four legislators from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) -- a party which frequently claims their opponents will use "dirty tricks" (奧步) to win the election -- initiated actions this past Wednesday which arrogantly overstepped their authority. Just 10 days before the presidential election, the legislators intruded into the campaign headquarters of those very opponents under the guise of conducting an "inspection." Such things are supposed to be handled by prosecutors (檢察官) with warrants.
Although it doesn't appear that they actually gained access to the campaign offices, they did abuse their authority by refusing the building's first-floor security's demands for them to sign in and by imagining that they have any such power to conduct "inspections" of private property.
[...] it is all nice and well that Ma apologized, but it shows he cannot control his party's legislators.
As Ma yesterday said that it was a public issue whether Hsieh's campaign was illegally leasing the office building, Hsieh said he had no problem discussing the issue. However, it was another issue for KMT legislators to barge into his campaign headquarters and then condemn the violence of his [meaning Hsieh's] team members.
"It is to mistake the effect for the cause," he said. "It is like a woman who is sexually harassed by a man and slaps the man on the face. The man turns around and then accuses the woman of brutality."
Whether they got "in the door" or not is not the issue here. It's about their intentions.
The DPP has subsequently produced the lease for their office space for the public to view and make up their own minds:
The lease agreement (Hsieh's campaign rented the office space under the company name 「美夢成真」, or "Dreams Come True") (Click image to enlarge) (See also the article which accompanied the above image in the Liberty Times [自由時報] print edition)
On Friday, KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世) was still "urging the Executive Yuan to investigate whether or not Hsieh's camp had occupied the bank's property for free." Read on, and see behind the multiple curtains of this crazy mess.
(REMINDER: Hovering your cursor on most links in my posts will reveal extra information in a small pop-up.)
Villainy and vengeance Wednesday evening, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Alex Fai (費鴻泰) (caucus whip), Chen Chieh (陳杰), Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才), and Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) (an officer in Shih Ming-teh's [施明德] "redshirt" army [紅衫軍]) went to DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh's (謝長廷) campaign headquarters in Taipei looking for information they claimed would show an illicit relationship between Hsieh and First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) or that Hsieh's campaign was either paying unfairly-reduced rent or none at all.
It began earlier in the afternoon with an interpellation of First Bank manager (總經理) Huang Hsien-chuan (黃獻全) and Minister of Finance Ho Chih-chin (何志欽) at the Legislative Yuan by Alex Fai during which Fai says he wants the two others to accompany him to DPP headquarters the following morning, then suddenly changes his mind and wants to go "right away" (馬上). See the flip-flop between the 3:33 and 3:43 marks in the video below.
According to an article in Thursday's Taiwan News, they used the excuse that they were doing a "fire inspection." After the four ignored first-floor security, went up to Hsieh's office on the thirteenth floor, and then took the elevator down to the third floor -- where they were blocked in by campaign staff -- police were called to the scene. When police arrived, they began to escort the four legislators away (no one was being placed under arrest), but a large crowd had apparently already gathered outside.
Son-of-a-gangster Lo Ming-tsai fled the scene amidst the pushing and shoving going on between DPP supporters and the many police who were outside the offices. These supporters wanted to legally detain the three remaining suspects until prosecutors arrived. The police were able to remove the KMT legislators from the scene a couple of hours later after prosecutors finally arrived to verify the DPP's claims and the DPP unblocked the exits.
Alex Fai (費鴻泰) on Thursday I'm no Dr. Bill Frist, but I can detect neither an ear injury nor any signs of brain activity by watching this guy on TV. (Click image to enlarge)
As the KMT legislators were making their way to the police car, someone in the huge crowd that formed outside appears to have landed or nearly landed a blow on or just behind Fai's right ear, but in the footage of him "apologizing" for the incident Thursday afternoon, a medium close-up (above) didn't reveal any problems with his ear, chin, or any other part of the exterior of his head. TV images on Wednesday evening and Thursday afternoon showed him variously in a wheelchair and on a hospital gurney. He has since conjectured that he's being persecuted because he is a "waishengren" (外省人) (his own term), or so-called "mainlander." (See video of that twisted excuse in Part 2 of the links here [21:11 on-screen "也許衝著我是外省人的關係"]).
Alex "Faker" Fai (費鴻「太過分」, screen right) "stretch-er-ing" the truth on Wednesday (Click image to enlarge)
KMT presidential candidate, Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), then made a statement "denouncing" (譴責) the violence "on both sides," obfuscating the fact that if these members of his own party had stayed in the Legislative Yuan and not overstepped their authority, the day's events would not have occurred. Subsequent statements from Ma included half-hearted apologies which must be seen to be truly understood.
Who's to blame? If these four legislators did this without Ma's or KMT chairman Wu Poh-hsiung's (吳伯雄) knowledge or permission, shouldn't they be kicked out of the party? (Pre-completion update: Fai has offered to quit the party, but he wasn't kicked out.) If Ma and/or Wu did know about it, shouldn't they step down from their respective positions? And are the KMT's "apologies" really apologies when caucus whip Lin Yi-shih says that "these four legislators didn't do anything wrong." Is he advocating Gestapo-like tactics? What if the shoe were on the other foot?
Furthermore, can the KMT's "apologies" really count as apologies when a front-page ad in Thursday's United Daily News (聯合報) has Wu making the excuse that they "went to the wrong place at the wrong time"? Would it have been okay at "another time"?
These were not mere "rogue supporters" -- they were legislators, including a caucus whip and a convener of the Legislative Yuan Finance Committee. What the fuck kind of Bizarro World do these people live in?!
Why Wednesday? With a report by Next magazine (一週刊) just coming out alleging that KMT legislator Diane Lee (李慶安) has US citizenship (or did during her legislative terms) and another story about Ma Ying-jeou's father Ma Ho-ling (馬鶴凌) having had an affair several years ago, one might suspect that Wednesday's incident was a KMT dirty trick to distract attention from these other things.
If, as Ma-the-son says, there's nothing to the green card story, why does he continue trying to divert everyone's attention toward the Central Election Commission's (CEC) report that said he doesn't have US citizenship when that's a horse of a completely different color?
Is this going to hurt Ma and help Hsieh to win the election? Will this event (四個笨蛋) be blamed if Hsieh wins the March 22 election the way those pesky "two bullets" (兩顆子單) were blamed when Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) won in 2004? Only time will tell.
RELATED INFO: * SocialForce.tw provides links to video of the event which I haven't seen any of the news channels broadcasting. The video begins with still pictures unaccompanied by sound, but then you can hear DPP officials describing just what they were doing as it happened.
* "Dirty tricks"? I've got yer dirty tricks right here! Via Friday's China Post:
TAIPEI, Taiwan -- A Taiwanese opposition lawmaker said Friday he will consider suicide if party presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou loses the presidential election on March 22.
Alex Fai of the opposition Nationalists said he felt extremely sad about the controversy surrounding an opposition invasion into the Taipei headquarters of Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Frank Hsieh on Wednesday.
If the incident costs Ma his presidential victory, Fai said, "I will not exclude the possibility of ending my own life."
[...]
Before January's legislative poll, DPP lawmaker Wang Shih-cheng said he would jump into the sea if his party failed to win a single seat in the city of Taipei.
The Nationalists ended up with a clean sweep there, and Wang made good on his promise - though without any lasting ill effects.
If you even entertain the thought that Fai would do the same, you're a fool!
* Thursday's Taiwan News uses active verbs in the headline "KMT lawmakers cause chaos after storming Hsieh's office," telling readers just who did what as well as when and how they did it. (The link is to a cached version, because Taiwan News articles are inaccessible to non-subscribers after a week or so. I've saved the original page -- with images [try these links: 1, 2] -- as a PDF file for when the online version disappears.) Check out how Ma Ying-jeou deflects the blame:
Speaking in Chiayi yesterday, Ma expressed "regret" over the incident and censored the Hsieh camp for "violence."
* Thursday's China Post unsurprisingly makes it look like the incident happened spontaneously with the passive headline, First melee erupts as presidential race heats up. Note also that it's the "[f]irst" melee. Do they have inside information about plans for more such incidents? Foreigner in Formosa points out that the geographically-challenged newspaper hid the story. (I had found it via a Google search for info related to this incident.) While it was a front-page headline in the print edition (I saw it with my own eyes while I was at work), a link to the article was missing from the front page of the March 13, 2008 online edition (which I also verified with my own eyes). Try out their "select date" function at the bottom of their front page, and see for yourself.
* In this video from CTiTV, you can see that their videographer accompanied the four legislators in the elevator. The anchor says that their personnel "didn't see anyone kick or even touch the glass door" -- just 11 seconds after it appears that one of them does touch the door (1:50 in the video). Could it be that they're the only ones with a camera who saw it and that they're just not showing us the footage? Don't forget what the anchor just said, basically repeating what the reporter said around the 1:40 to 1:45 mark and what happened between the smoke and the mirrors. This report is presented as if the "evil DPP" set a "trap" for the "kind and gentle" KMT, as if the latter didn't decide on their own to show up at the headquarters of the former. And the more the reporter and anchor say that about the door "not being kicked," the more I suspect that it did happen.
Hsieh aides alleged that Fai and company kicked the door open to intrude. Fai said they all entered "peacefully."
"If I did," Fai said, "I'll quit as lawmaker and politics altogether."
His three colleagues vowed to follow suit after they offered an apology.
Lawmaker Lo Ming-tsai said he would resign as convener of the Legislative Yuan finance committee, should he have kicked open the door.
The other two legislators, Chen Chieh and Luo Shu-lei, also asked to be forgiven for their sally, which was intended to find out whether Hsieh paid for an extra office on the thirteenth floor of the bank's building without paying rent.
"Please produce evidence that we kicked in the door," all four said, "and we all would resign."
While Fai says he'll "quit ... politics altogether," Lo Ming-tsai -- the one who fled the scene before police arrived -- promises a much lesser sacrifice. Gee, I wonder why. (I also wonder if something is lost in translation here. Did they actually "kick [in/open]" any doors, or was it more like "barging in" or "intruding"?)
"It wasn't violence," Hsieh went on. He likened the free-for-all to a tit-for-tat. "Can you say a girl slapping a man trying to rape her is committing an act of violence?" he asked.
What Hsieh means there is that he doesn't accept Ma's description of the violence being "on both sides." You tell him, Frank!
* The BBC goes FUBAR with this story, claiming that "MPs from both sides were arrested." That did not happen on this planet, but the usual suspect's name (Caroline Gluck) appears in the story:
According to the BBC correspondent in Taipei, Caroline Gluck, the run-up to elections in Taiwan are normally heated affairs, but violence-free.
So the clash at the DPP campaign offices - the first case of any disorder ahead of this month's presidential elections - was widely reported, our correspondent adds.
I guess Gluck "forgot" about the assassination attempt on Chen Shui-bian and Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) in March 2004, the gas bomber in December 2004, and so many other similar "violence-free" incidents. Michael Turton blogged this one in more detail while I was busy with this post.
* October 27, 2007: The KMT in Taiwan vs. the GOP in the USA, in which the "phony sanctimony and faux outrage" of the party that brought us George W. Bush is compared with that of the KMT.
* May 20, 2004: "United" only in their divisiveness, in which the losers of that year's election stand behind shields of irony while accusing Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of "hiding behind bulletproof glass." (Foiled yet again!)
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) is having DTs about the lack of martial law in modern Taiwan. Friday's Taipei Times gives us the money quote:
In another development, KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) yesterday condemned the DPP for accusing him and Ma of "selling out democracy," and dared Chen to declare martial law.
The DPP carried an advertisement in several Chinese-language newspapers yesterday featuring a wanted poster for Wu and Ma, portraying them as heads of a ring of swindlers selling out the country's democracy by urging voters not to cast referendum ballots. [IMAGE]
The ad called on voters to support the DPP.
"The KMT refuses to cast referendum ballots in order to simplify the election process. I call on President Chen not to play dirty tricks," Wu said yesterday while campaigning for KMT legislators in Kaohsiung City. "I dare Chen to declare martial law and bring me and Ma to justice under military rule."
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