Friend observes: Ma probably won't be able to get anything controversial through the legislature til the end of his term. Yep! This means that his fury and frustration will be largely directed at his own party. I'm thinking Taiwan might actually run out of hot dogs, popcorn, and beer by the time I am through watching the KMT savage itself.
The new cabinet is out, and it is very similar to the old cabinet. Ma has made former Premier Jiang Yi-hwa the Sec-Gen of the Presidential Office. He's not just circling the wagons; he's turtling.
This Apple Daily piece argues that the KMT will effectively lose another 550,000 votes in 2016, when 250K of its old voters will have died off, and another 300,000 young votes come online. As I said, if the DPP performs well and can hang onto those gains -- and their local governance has been good in recent years -- they can pen the KMT up in the north where demographic change will kill it.
Ma is not giving any evidence of willingness or ability to reform -- which is bad in the sense that the DPP is better off with a strong opposition that can keep it honest and hungry.
This possibility of KMT meltdown means that US policy, predicated on KMT dominance that reduces "tensions", and the misinterpretation of Taiwan as the cause of tensions, is rapidly becoming outmoded.
Interestingly, Eric Chu of New Taipei City and Ko Wen-je of Taipei are old friends from their university days.
Interestingly, Eric Chu and Jason Hu former mayor of Taichung were not at the big KMT shindig on Wednesday. Hu has taken a position at Fengchia University in Taichung.
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Daily Links:
- If you can stand another election review, the Lowy Interpreter has a sterling review from someone who actually lives in Taiwan. With links to Frozen Garlic and Ben Goren -- good to see them getting some recognition for their good work.
- Latest DPP defense policy paper released
- I forgot to link to this comedy last week: the KMT's analysis of its own defeat. Ben looked at it in his post the other day.
[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!
Eh, we've seen the KMT survive a near-meltdown before to come back very strongly. It's got too many resources and networks to suffer for long. But we can hope that that the current leadership suffers a long enough period of defeats to be replaced by a lighter shade of blues.
ReplyDeleteI just love the notes at the bottom of the KMT's analysis of its own defeat. So Taiwan's growth is better than that of most European countries? Whoopee, Taiwan must really be flying now!
ReplyDeleteAgree with Carlos. In 2004 we thought the KMTards were cooked and big changes would be coming, but then CSB/wife got into trouble and the KMT came back to life with Ma the Handsome. Little did Taiwan know what a incompetent imbecile he was.
ReplyDeleteI don't know, Carlos, arguably this is the KMT's worst local election showing since democracy arrived in Taiwan. And, unlike the 1990s, the DPP is a more established and matured party that has had the opportunity to govern at national and local level.
ReplyDeleteYou've also got to remember that people have access to new forms of media that simply didn't exist before through the internet.
Does this election spell the end for the KMT? Of course not. But if the DPP plays their cards right they can really use these results as a springboard for long-term success.
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Anonymous 5:27,
Ma was mayor of Taipei. Everyone knew that he couldn't manage himself out of a wet paper bag during the 2008 election. The writing was also on the wall with regards to selling out Taiwan to China. He sure was handsome to a lot of folks, though.
Since then, I have given up understanding the Taiwanese electorate.
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Ma Ying-Jeou is reported to have said yesterday (Dec 06, 2014) that he will follow Morses' example and hand over his responsibility to a young Joshua.
ReplyDeleteThe occasion was a "Breakfast Prayer for the Nation (ROC)" at a church. Participants included Eric Chu (New Taipei mayor), John Wu (Taoyuan loser), Wang Chien-shien and other KMTers.
The narcissist continues to stare into the water from his high "horse" (pun intended) ground.
News Link (Liberty Times in Chinese):
http://news.ltn.com.tw/news/focus/paper/837047
oh boy, first Sean Lien was the Buddha and now Ma is Moses. When will the insanity stop?!!
ReplyDeleteAnyone out there know why Apple Daily is inaccessible in the US?
ReplyDeleteAgree with Raj; it’s different this time. In addition to the three reasons Raj mentioned, this is a nightmare showing by a party given that (a) their chairman-president hasn’t been accused of corruption and (b) they own the legislature. This kind of thumbs-down has never happened before in Taiwan. And, as Michael has pointed out elsewhere, the KMT has groomed no up-and-coming talent and has left no space for talent to groom itself. Chu’s their only hope, and he risks getting slaughtered if he abandons his stated commitment to Xinbei and runs for president in 2016 – whether it’s more hype or more the truth, his image rests in good part on being a guy who keeps his word. The DPP can still bungle between now and the presidential election, but there’s almost no way it can go CSB on itself. And the public doesn’t seem into smear campaigns anymore. So how much can KMT gold really do?
ReplyDeleteThere is a DDOS attack on appledaily's cdn (cloudflare.)
ReplyDeleteTemporarily add the following entries to your hosts file to view the site.
203.211.2.34 www.appledaily.com.tw
210.242.234.143 imgorg.appledaily.com.tw