Producing what he called "evidence," Wu said that Wang was suspected of vote-buying by offering cash between NT$500 and NT$3,000 or free gifts to solicit votes from potential supporters. Wang spent over NT$30 million (US$956,000) over the past few weeks offering 6,000 free meals to potential voters, Wu said.
Wu also claimed that he had received information from party employees in the KMT's Yunlin chapter that there are over 8,000 party members registered there who do not exist. Wu alleged that these false members could be used in the election to support Wang.
VOTE BUYING!
The KMT has long used such tactics in distorting election outcomes in Taiwan. Not only does the thrust and counterthrust of allegation and revelation here reveal how the KMT really operates, it also explains their refusal to accept the 2004 election results. The KMT has cheated so long and so routinely and so thoroughly that it simply cannot imagine an election conducted in any other fashion. In its collective mind, the DPP could only have won by cheating, since that it is the way the KMT has always won.
The Taipei Times editorialized in the same vein today:
As the "official" bagman for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (The paper also had a pretty clear overview of the KMT's use of ethnic politics to divide and rule Taiwan, another characteristically KMT move it has accused the DPP of. Few outsiders realize to what extent the KMT is a coalition party knitting together class and ethnic divisions whose eruption at any moment might cause the wheels to come off. The editorial is a good mini-introduction to the ethnic and class policies of the KMT.連戰 ) and former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝 ), there is any amount of dirt that can be leveled at Wang and most of it will stick. The problem for Ma is that Wang is known to be a powerful facilitator, a man who can get things done, for this very reason. To shine a close light on Wang will show up not just one bad apple but the linchpin of a perfectly rotten system, and it is by no means certain that exposing the KMT in such a way will endear Ma to its members.
UPDATE: The Chinese language press is reporting that Wang told the SKII Young KMT group that if elected, he would appoint Ma as the KMT Vice Chairman. Ma may look young, but he is actually in his mid-50s, and probably at least a decade older than what SKII has in mind. Ma has refused to make a similar declaration. Additionally, Chiang Hsiao-yan, the illegitimate son of the second president, Chiang Ching-kuo, came out in favor of Wang today, saying that Wang is following the path blazed by Chiang Ching-kuo (although since Chiang was a corrupt old authoritarian, perhaps son Chiang is making a subtle put-down of Wang. :) ). Ma is looking more and more like he is twisting in the wind, rudderless.
UPDATE: David at Jujuflop has another winning post on the Wang-Ma struggle for the checkbook -- er -- soul of the KMT, rich with background and details.
UPDATE: (July 13) Mayor Ma complained that his opponent had 5,000 extra votes, implying that Wang had cheated to get them. Ma is preparing his excuses already.
UPDATE: (July 13) Taiwan News has an editorial on the same theme as earlier ones about the way the election is revealing the KMT for what it truly is.
Besides manifesting the KMT's party culture, all that is happening is the surfacing of internal fractures that have been subsumed by the ambition of KMT politicians to keep a share of the KMT's once massive financial empire and a slice of power or, now, a shred of a dimming fantasy of regaining power lost.
...
The KMT is structurally incapable of providing a long-term sustainable vision for Taiwan because any program that would really put "Taiwan first" would conflict directly with the KMT's own ingrained "great China" ideology which previously legitimized its authoritarian rule over Taiwan.
[Taiwan]
So much for the battle between 'gentlemen'. I consider the vote buying allegations much worse than the disparity in party members (I bet noone really has a clue how many members the KMT has, and where they live). But NT$30 million for 6,000 free meals? That's NT$5000 a head! I'm off to apply for membership so I can claim my freebies (can us 'new taiwanese' become members?)!
ReplyDeleteMa is posing as the reformer here, and my mainlander friends are all telling me what a great reformer he is. I don't know what constituency he is playing to...he seems to be flailing about, having no strategy, and no idea how to beat Wang. Of course, when your opponent can blow US$150 on meals for the electorate, there's not much you can do.
ReplyDeleteI think one of Ma's troubles is that he can't say too much about the KMT's current problems (and how he plans to solve them), because that would imply disloyalty to Lien Chan and his cronies ... for example Lien got him (and Wang) to admit publicly that the KMT did not have a 'black gold' problem at all - yeah right! How can you claim to be a reformer while at the same time saying everything is rosy in the KMT garden?
ReplyDeleteI think he could do a good job in sorting out the KMT - he's definitely got the pedigree on corruption, he isn't beholden to as many KMT members as Wang, and is enough of an administrator to sort out assets, membership, and basic rules of the party. His biggest problem would probably be getting the senior KMT to support any reforms.
What he isn't is a particularly smart political maneuverer - which is part of the reason he's flapping now ...
Right on. I thought loyalty to Lien held him back last year, when he should have pushed Lien out of the chairmanship after Lien blew another election he should have won handily.
ReplyDeleteAh well. The 2008 election will feature Wang, Su or Hsieh, and...Soong again? ROFL. More fallout from a Wang victory -- increasing the marginalization of Soong, I suspect.
A friend of mine (who happens to be related to a former member of the KMT central committee) sent me this reply when I asked for predictions on the election:
ReplyDelete"What I've heard from here and there is that Ma's got more chance of winning. I got the impression that Wang's got more money and resources and is more skillful in organizing the local KMT supporters,
particularly in the south, while Ma's got the "Huang FuXing" branch (mainlanders) and the youngsters. The youngsters might be more scattered and less organized, but apparently Ma's got the charisma to
drive them out to vote. Many Blues are worried that the party will break up after the election, seeing how intense things have been going, but I am not so sure about that. There's also rumor that if Ma
wins, the (native) Taiwanese groups within KMT will become Greens."
While this friend (damn I feel like Li freaking Ao here with this confidential source, but I don't want a good friend to get pissed off at me) admits to being a little out of it over this election, it is interesting to hear what's being said from within the pan-blue camp. Whether or not the party will really break up in the aftermath, there is evidentially a lot of hand-wringing going on within the upper echelons at the moment, showing how nervous this is making people.
My own 2 cents is that the party is much more likely to split along generational lines than along "ethnic" lines; most of the bentu KMT leaders are dirty enough as is, and will ride the nationalist gravy train into the, er, grave.
If Ma loses, younger members would definitely be dissillusioned by what they see as a geriatric kleptocracy that was never interested in hearing their opinions anyway. If my friend's right, it would take Ma to proactively organize the young 'uns (possibly outside if he were to actually grow a pair) in time for a run at the presidency in '08.