Written by Brian Hioe.
Image credit: 柯文哲/ Facebook.
The results of the presidential and legislative elections, in many ways, confirmed predictions ahead of time. Late polling before the blackout period imposed ten days before elections showed Lai to have a significant lead ahead of his opponents, even if Ko Wen-je’s 3.7 million votes prove an impressive showing for the upstart TPP candidate. Indeed, in the early vote count, it appeared as though Ko could, in fact, be leading Hou, and it could not be ruled out from polls before the election results as to whether Ko or Hou was in second place.
Similarly, the outcome of the legislative races had a near-even split between the KMT and DPP. The DPP won 51 seats, and the KMT won 52 seats. That being said, as many predicted, given this deadlock between the KMT and DPP, the TPP could potentially now control the balance of power. Namely, the TPP gained eight seats through the party list vote, even if the TPP was defeated in all district races–even those in which the party had the endorsement of the KMT.
The TPP has proven that it is a force with staying power in Taiwanese politics, then–for at least the next four years. Questions about the long-term viability of the party still remain. This is particularly regarding the party’s relationship with its chair, Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je, and how the TPP will relate to the KMT as the larger party in the pan-Blue camp.
The TPP’s successes in the party list vote and Ko’s surprisingly strong performance occurs despite the backlash against Ko in the past weeks. Importantly, the public spectacle of Ko’s missteps in negotiating a joint ticket with the KMT in the past weeks seemingly did not impact his performance in the presidential run.
Many commentators originally thought that this would have resulted in significant blowback against Ko, with Ko shown to be a poor negotiator and apparently out of step with his own party. In the course of the negotiations, Ko agreed to a joint ticket despite that this was not what he had agreed on with members of his party, resulting in a party spokesperson breaking into tears immediately. Negotiations over the joint ticket then dragged on interminably with many rounds of back-and-forth between the two parties, with each party refusing to back down in favour of the other. Neither the TPP nor KMT could accept a presidential ticket that was not led by their own candidate, and the two parties fought about the process for deciding on the presidential candidate, each trying to push for means of polling that guaranteed their preference.
Attacks on the TPP after the incident by the pan-Green camp called on TPP politicians to leave the party, suggesting that they would be led astray by the missteps of the leader. Otherwise, the framing was that Ko was not suited to holding office, given the dangers of an inept negotiator dealing with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Ko may have benefited from his strong performance in the presidential policy presentations and presidential debate afterwards, which may have helped in rebuilding his image. Yet Ko’s reputation among his supporters is probably not affected by his blunders. With Ko sometimes referred to as a populist politician, Ko’s gaffes and even his public missteps may contribute to the view of him as a regular person in politics, different from the slick, polished politicians that otherwise dominate Taiwanese political discourse.
Even so, the incident offers lessons as to what challenges the TPP faces going forward.
A recurring theme at TPP rallies shortly before the vote was the emphasis that the TPP is not a party reducible to a single individual, as critics have accused it of being. Yet, in spite of this, references to Ko were frequent at TPP rallies, in a way that indicates that the party is strongly built around his political image and career.
Ko’s missteps in negotiating with the KMT illustrate that there are times in which he suddenly defies the consensus of the rest of the party because he views his choices as paramount. Yet the TPP’s politicians are largely established politicians from minor pan-Blue parties whose political careers sometimes predate Ko’s. They almost certainly did not join the party out of personal loyalty to Ko but because of their own political interests–this raises questions as to what happens with the TPP if the interests of its politicians diverge from Ko at some point.
Likewise, if Ko’s career eventually disintegrates, as the incident suggests it could potentially through some future political debacle, this could mean the end of the party.
This is a challenge faced by other third parties in recent years, such as the New Power Party (NPP), Social Democratic Party (SDP), and Taiwan Statebuilding Party (TSP), in which the party fails to develop a broader base of support beyond public support for key leaders. Either the party remains unable to grow beyond its initial leadership, as with the TSP and the leadership of Shinichi Chen, the party disintegrates if key figures clash, as with the clash between Freddy Lim and Huang Kuo-chang in the NPP or Shinichi Chen and Chen Po-wei in the TSP, or the party largely dissolves after the departure of key figures, as with Lim’s departure from the NPP and Fan Yun’s departure from the SDP.
To this extent, though the TPP hopes to grow and expand its influence by controlling the balance of power in the Legislative Yuan, this too will encounter a familiar stumbling block of third parties–the question of how to relate to the larger party of a political camp. After all, even if there continues to be space for third parties to form and develop in Taiwan, the political system remains dominated by the DPP and KMT.
The most significant of the “Third Force” parties that emerged after the 2014 Sunflower Movement was the NPP. However, the split between party leaders Freddy Lim and Huang Kuo-chang occurred over whether the party should openly endorse Tsai Ing-wen for president or not. At stake was the question of whether the NPP would just become a “little green” party that is smaller than the DPP but fundamentally indistinguishable from it or not. The NPP’s inability to resolve this question is the key issue that led to its disintegration in past years.
It is a question for the TPP as to how to avoid the fate of the NPP. Namely, if the TPP simply cooperates with the KMT in coalition governance in the legislature, the TPP runs the risk of becoming no different than the KMT except being a smaller party–becoming an indistinguishable “little blue” party. As such, even as the TPP and the KMT make public overtures to each other during the presidential and vice presidential debates over cooperation, the TPP has sought to preserve its independence by leaving the door open to cooperating with pan-Green politicians even as the KMT has sought to pressure it into a more secure commitment to a joint coalition.
It is to be expected that this push and pull between the TPP and KMT will continue. It may not necessarily be that the TPP can control the balance of power between the two camps, but that the TPP could, in fact, find itself caught between a rock and a hard place if tensions worsen with both major parties. This is to be seen.
Brian Hioe is one of the founding editors of New Bloom. He is a freelance journalist, as well as a translator. A New York native and Taiwanese-American, he has an MA in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University. He graduated from New York University with majors in History, East Asian Studies, and English Literature. He was Democracy and Human Rights Service Fellow at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy from 2017 to 2018 and is currently a non-resident fellow at the University of Nottingham’s Taiwan Studies Programme.
This article was published as part of a special issue on ‘What does the 2024 Taiwan election tell us?’.
