TAICHUNG (Taiwan News) — The dust hasn’t settled on Saturday’s election, but already speculation is rampant on who will be the presidential nominees in the national elections to be held a little over a year and a half away, in January 2024. To prepare readers, I’ll be examining the top candidates in all the major parties over the next few weeks, starting with this look at the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presumptive heir apparent, Vice President Lai Ching-te (賴清德, he used to go by William, but no longer).
Taiwan has a curious habit of electing people from the medical profession, and Lai was originally a doctor specializing in spinal cord injuries. One wonders if the many political opponents whose spines he’s metaphorically crushed over the years appreciate the irony.
In spite of originally being from Taipei County (today’s New Taipei City), his first position as an elected official was to the now-disbanded National Assembly and then to the Legislative Yuan representing constituencies in Tainan. He then went on to serve two terms as Tainan mayor.
High noon at the Tainan City Council
He was a highly popular mayor, but one central controversy drew significant national attention. In 2014, Tainan City Council speaker Lee Chuan-chiao (李全教) of the Kuomintang (KMT) suspiciously won his speaker position with the backing of members of the DPP caucus. Lai, assuming that corrupt “black gold” politics were at play, boycotted the city council.
Lai turned out to be correct, and Lee was eventually sentenced to jail for vote buying in both his election to the council, and for buying off fellow city councilors to obtain the speakership. Controversially, however, the Control Yuan — then largely composed of members appointed by then-President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) — voted to impeach Lai stating “Lai and other city government officials’ absences are a blight on the nation’s history of local governance,” but in the end did not remove him from office.
By the time he left office, his national reputation as a popular mayor and anti-“black gold” politician earned him the nickname “the god Lai” (賴神). Sensing a golden political opportunity, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) appointed him premier in 2017.
The position of premier is a bit of a poisoned chalice. In Taiwan’s political system, what we call the “premier” is officially called the President of the Executive Yuan, who heads the cabinet and is in charge of running the executive branch.
Despite the lofty title, in practice, the premier inevitably becomes a punching bag shielding the president. Lai’s tenure was largely successful, and though references to “the god Lai” noticeably started dropping off, he remained broadly popular with the public.
In November 2018, the DPP lost the local elections in a landslide. Tsai stepped down as party chair (though later re-instated) and Lai tried to resign as premier, in both cases to take responsibility for the loss, as is customary in Taiwan.
Lai was convinced to stick around for a few more months to smooth the transition, but didn't leave the post until the following January. Sharp-eyed readers may have noticed the “presumptive” heir-apparent used above, and if any obstacles rise up in Lai’s path to the presidential nomination inside the party, it will likely be related to what happened next.
The 2019 presidential primary surprise
In some quarters in both the deep blue and deep green camps, a popular claim is that Tsai “stole” the 2019 DPP presidential primary. While technically not true according to party rules, the claim isn’t entirely without substance.
In Taiwan politics, generally speaking, incumbents aren’t challenged in primaries. And Lai, when he was premier, had promised Tsai he wouldn’t challenge her in the primary.
Tsai appears to have trusted him. At the very least, it is completely clear she didn’t expect a primary challenge.
Aside from one major miscalculation, Lai launched what should have been a surgical strike that won him the presidential nomination. He waited until the very last minute to submit his candidacy — while Tsai was on an overseas trip — and launched a new book, which demonstrated he had been preparing for this for some time, promise to Tsai or not.
Aside from his miscalculation, if things had gone according to plan, he probably would have won the nomination. Primaries are decided on opinion polling and, at the time, Lai was very popular, and Tsai was very unpopular.
By waiting until the very last minute and while Tsai was overseas, Lai caught her at her popularity's weakest point.
Tsai's supporters outraged
This lightning strike totally shocked the DPP and split the party. Even the powerful New Tide faction, which Lai is a member of, was split and confused. With some members backing Tsai, and others Lai, some tried to negotiate a deal between the two and others simply took to hills to keep out of the fray.
Tsai and her supporters were outraged at what they saw as Lai’s betrayal. To Lai’s supporters, it was a long overdue move to replace an unpopular president and party chair who had humiliated the party in the local elections, and for many it was a way to remove a president they thought was too cautious and not moving ahead towards independence.
Lai also probably thought having an ally in the party chair at the time, Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), would be an asset. Though at the time it was widely speculated Cho supported Lai, he has since come out and founded a new faction explicitly backing Lai, confirming those suspicions.
However, Cho was widely viewed as an interim chair, wasn’t a political heavyweight, and didn’t have much influence. The party’s election committee, which was likely mostly Tsai’s people, voted to delay the primary by a few days.
Outrage baton handed to Lai supporters
Then the election committee delayed the primary again and added a primary debate, giving Tsai considerable time to campaign. The extent of Tsai's influence on these decisions is unknown.
Whatever the case, Lai’s supporters were outraged. While changing the primary date wasn’t against party rules and the committee technically had the right to do so, to Lai’s supporters, changing the primary dates twice was breaking the rules and blatantly putting the thumb on the scale on behalf of Tsai.
That was Lai’s serious miscalculation, and this time he was the one clearly blindsided by this turn of events. Still, he was undeterred.
The party was deeply split between the Tsai and Lai camps, and another group desperately trying to broker some sort of joint ticket between the two. The problem was, however, that with Tsai having already been president, and Lai having been premier, the vice presidency was a step down for either of them.
Both Tsai and Lai were at that moment bitter enemies, and though they didn’t directly attack each other, they did so frequently through innuendo and insinuation. There was even talk in the air of the party splitting apart.
Through gritted teeth
In the end, Tsai won the primary by a solid margin. Under intense pressure from within the party to attempt to heal the wounds of the primary, Tsai eventually gritted her teeth and selected Lai to be her vice presidential nominee, and he gritted his teeth and accepted.
The tension between the two was palpable, especially in the beginning. Tsai, who many — especially those who have negotiated with her — have described her as “inscrutable” and “hard to read,” but you could at times sense her anger viscerally when watching the two together.
After they were elected, Lai was clearly in the doghouse for quite some time, reduced to a glorified ribbon cutter. It was only in their second year that Lai was finally given substantial tasks, probably because Tsai realized that, in the long-term interests of the party, Lai would need some diplomatic experience if he were ever to become president. It’s doubtful she was happy with that choice, however.
Tensions could resurface
In a few months, the DPP will be in primary season, and with President Tsai term-limited out and no longer the party chair, the tensions that existed in 2019 may resurface. The factions are also likely to intensify their competition.
If there is a challenge to Lai, the knives will come out, possibly sooner than later. The race is now on for party chair, and the party chair is traditionally the party’s candidate in presidential races.
As the party chair and presidential primary play out, knowing this history could be very important in understanding the dynamics at play. It also gives some insight into the kind of political hardball Lai is capable of: Politics isn’t a tea party, and he’s clearly capable of being a fighter.
Stay tuned, in an upcoming column we’ll look at Lai’s strengths and weaknesses as a candidate, as well as potential challengers within the DPP, and of course, examination of the potential candidates from the other major parties.
