Sunday, February 15, 2015

Election Round Up: Tsai announcing candidacy... 11 months from Armageddon

Party time at the old Da-an Train Station outside Houli.

Couple of key events for the election next year. First, Tsai Ing-wen, DPP Chairman, declared her candidacy for presidency. She announced on Facebook that she'd enter the primary to become the DPP's presidential candidate, but since she's the party leader and the shoo-in candidate. Way cool moment: announced on Facebook, where she has well over a million followers. Several DPPers were complaining about the party's primary, which has an entry fee to discourage random fools from standing in the primary that they don't like. Everyone is speculating now who the Veep will be...

Meanwhile another Tsai, Alex Tsai, who ran the laughably inept campaign for the KMT's Sean Lien in Taipei Mayor that culminated in an epic spanking, survived a recall election by the Appendectomy Project. I considered this project a waste of time and resources by self-promoters, which is why I've more or less ignored it (ADDED: Frozen Garlic with good thoughts on the recall vote).

The big news is that the Presidential and legislative elections are going to be held on the same day in Jan of 2016:
CEC members decided during a meeting today that the 14th presidential and the 9th legislative elections [next year] shall be held on the same day,” CEC Chairman Liu I-chou (劉義周) told a press conference after the meeting. “As for the date of the elections, the CEC will call a meeting with local election commissions to decide.”
Everyone agrees that (1) this favors the DPP and (2) the effect won't be very great. But high turnout in the Presidential election should help put a few DPP candidates in office. This means that the election is now eleven months away. Most people expect the DPP to win the Presidency. If the election were held tomorrow Tsai Ing-wen would win, but the DPP has eleven months to exercise its powerful capacity for screwing up. So I'll be on tenterhooks until she is actually sworn in.

With the KMT's numerous problems, I'm very curious to see how many local faction politicians break with the party and attempt to run as independents over the next few months, since that will be a strong signal of the KMT's direction. How new Chairman Eric Chu handles the local factions will be vital... and yet here is Ma Ying-jeou...

MaWangMess: You'd think that with 11 months remaining til election time Ma Ying-jeou, current KMT Chairman Eric Chu, and the KMT would be burying the hatchet and trying to move forward, but current President of the ROC and former KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou is still pursuing his vendetta against the Speaker of the Legislature Wang Jin-pyng (MaWangMessMaWangMess). The other day he demanded to know why new Chairman Eric Chu isn't out there pushing a third appeal by the KMT in the case. Wang is a major leader of the Taiwanese KMT and the vendetta against him caused a split in the KMT. Chu cannot file another appeal without re-opening those wounds. A smart, pragmatic politician would let the issue die, but only someone totally clueless would describe an inflexible ideologue like Ma as "pragmatic." Hilariously, Ma accused Chu of playing Tai Chi.

Not so comically, Ma has to keep the focus on Wang. Not only will it be a terrible loss of face for Ma if Wang retains his party honors, but more importantly, if the media focus is on Wang, it will take the media focus off Ma himself: the information he used against Wang appears to have been obtained illegally and Ma may have to face charges of abuse of power. The prosecutor who fed Ma the information that he used against Wang has already been found guilty of a crime in that case...
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10 comments:

Anonymous said...

This Ma angle will be even more fun if Wang's the 2016 KMT candidate. He's The General in His Labyrinth.

Jerome Besson said...

Picture the residents of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh voting in the elections of the Tibetan government-in-exile established in Dharmsala. Would it make sense?

While the principal victor of Japan in WWII keeps tolerating that on-going fraud, it does not allow Zhongnanhai to enforce its false claim on Taiwan. The international community does not recognize either the ROC or Taiwan as sovereign states.

The Chinese on Taiwan are legally exiles whose continued military occupation of Taiwan is tolerated by the principal victor in the Pacific theater of WWII. These proxy occupiers failed to establish the separate civil government of Taiwan that would have empowered the Taiwanese with control over their domestic affairs and, ultimately, independence.

Regrettably, once again, the Taiwanese electorate will cast their ballot in a race between contenders who are vying for the office of president of the exiled Republic of China on Taiwan. Tsai's prattle about "consolidating Taiwan's sovereignty" while the foundation is not there to build upon makes one cynical. She will still be running inside the strictures of a government-in-exile. She is already part an d parcel of the whole fraud.

Anonymous said...

Wang seems to be the only major KMT figure gearing up for the presidential race. I assume Ma will be pushing Hau or some other princeling to run against him - Chu clearly isn't reliable from Ma's perspective at this point.

Michael Turton said...

I'm thinking Ma will be pushing Jiang Yi-hwa. Not Hau, because Hau's father is Ma's rival. I think he supported Wang J-P in the infamous KMT chairman election the first time Ma became Chair.

les said...

Hasn't much of Wang Jin-ping's support base in the south been shuffled out of the county chief jobs just recently?

Please let them run Sean Lien for President. Lien Chan has never shown any sign of knowing when to fold, so why should that change now?

solidarity.tw said...

I don't know the situation well enough to say which of these are "Wang's people," but I can give you the list of southern and central party chiefs, most of whom must already have relationships with Wang from party work or the legislature:

South
Tainan City: Hsieh Lung-chieh 謝龍介
—Incumbent

Kaohsiung City: Hsu Fu-ming 許福明
—Past stints as Party Chapter Director in Taoyuan City, Kaohsiung City (!!), Changhua County, and Taichung City.

Chiayi City: Tsai Ming-hsien 蔡明顯
—Incumbent

Chiayi County: Wu Yu-jen 吳育仁
—Legislator (party list), National Chung Cheng University Department of Labor Relations Professor

Pingtung County: Liao Wan-ru 廖婉汝
—Legislator (until 2012), National Assemblywoman

Yunlin County: Hsu Yu-chen 許宇甄
—Yunlin County Women’s League Director, Yunlin County Volunteer Division Deputy Director, WuFeng University Lecturer

Central
Taichung City: Chiang Shih-liang 江士良
—Incumbent

Nantou County: Lee Che-hua 李哲華
—Incumbent

Changhua County: Liao Yi-tien 廖宜田
— Organizational Committee Deputy Chairman (concurrent), Organizational Committee Operational Department Director, Changhua County Chapter Director (!!), Nantou County Chapter Director

Anonymous said...

Ma just keep making bizarre statements, judges are not elected so they have no right to deliver verdict. Did he really get a law degree from Ivy League?

Mike Fagan said...

"The hills roll out like centuries..."

Mike Fagan said...

Shit. Wrong thread - should be the Lanyu one above.

Anonymous said...

I'm hoping William Lai is the VP but since he doesn't want to run for president, chances are he doesn't want to run for VP either.