Word: kmt
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...spit and tears. The most salient moment in the campaign for Taiwan's legislative elections last Saturday?a contest the local press ultimately dubbed the "saliva war"?came when the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) issued an official press release in which it remarked, without elaborating, that "23 million Taiwanese are wiping the DPP's ass." Candidates from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party were not the only ones splashed with vitriol. At one time or another, negative campaigning and personal attacks sent members of each of Taiwan's four major parties to their knees, weeping. Or at least they...
...When Chen rose to the presidency, ending 50 years of KMT rule, the commissars in Beijing worried that he and the DPP would try to assert formal independence for Taiwan. Those concerns proved unfounded, largely because Chen was constrained by the KMT, which not only retained a majority in the legislature, but also became a pulpit for decidedly pro-China politicians under its mainland-born chairman, Lien Chan. On Saturday, however, voters tore off Chen's shackles as the KMT won only 68 of the legislature's 225 seats, down from 123 coming into the vote. Chen's DPP, meanwhile...
...That does not give the President an absolute majority, but it does allow him to strike a deal to lure a few maverick KMT or independent politicians rather than engage in tedious and fragile coalition building, leaving the KMT totally out of the government. For the first time since Chiang Kai-shek's army fled to Taiwan, it seems likely politicians advocating unification with the mainland have been sidelined...
...indefatigable Lee Teng-hui, who was President for 12 years and chairman of the KMT until he was ousted by pro-China politicians earlier this year, was partly responsible for crippling his former party. Lee was not a candidate in Saturday's election and holds no governmental position. But you wouldn't have guessed it judging by his airtime during the campaign and the fact that Taiwan has been papered over with posters bearing his grandfatherly face. The 78-year-old Lee has fashioned himself as the chief backer of the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), a three-month-old party...
...sort of like a think tank, except that it will actually do something: namely, pressure the government and Taiwan's opposition politicians to think like him. And his campaign speeches made it clear that this means taking a much harder line on China and its sympathizers in the KMT. In one speech, Lee described himself as a prophet who would help release the Taiwanese people from the bondage of an overly powerful KMT and an intrusive China, boasting that "Lee Teng-hui is the only one in the world who's not afraid of the Chinese communists...