TAICHUNG (Taiwan News) — Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker Kao Chia-yu (高嘉瑜) and Taipei City Councilor Wang Shih-chien (王世堅) have a lot in common. They both served on Taipei City Council, both are fixtures on TV talk shows, and have a good sense of humor.

Wang has embraced the fact that he looks like the TV character Chucky, a doll possessed by a serial killer, hence the knife in the lead picture. Kao is a famously bad singer, so bad it’s funny, and she never misses a chance to do it in public.

They have another thing in common: There are loud calls to kick them out of the party. Their crime? They’re both outspoken and criticized the party during the election campaign.

There were even shouts of “step down,” “leave” and “be quiet” directed at Kao when she attended a policy meeting. To her credit, she showed her character by quipping: "You are very energetic and should use this energy to continue to support the DPP."

Both were critical of the party for standing by former Hsinchu mayor and at the time the party’s Taoyuan mayoral candidate, Lin Chih-chien (林智堅), as his plagiarism scandal exploded and his botched baseball stadium renovation project disaster came to light. Kao famously called for “one corpse for five lives” (一屍五命), with the five lives referring to the DPP candidates running in the big races in north Taiwan and the corpse being Lin. Wang was called a “Communist sympathizer” among other things, for raising concerns.

Kao’s prediction was right on the nose. The DPP had started the election cycle looking in good position to hold Hsinchu City, Taoyuan and Keelung, and had a respectable chance at winning Taipei.

But as the party continued backing Lin, the DPP’s support slumped all across the north. The party acted too late, and while it wasn’t the only problem the party had, it was a big one in the north.

Worst of days

In the end, the party had the worst local executive count since the party was formed, winning only five out of 22 commissioner and mayoral posts. Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) resigned as party chair to take responsibility, and the cabinet just followed suit.

No doubt at Kuomintang (KMT) headquarters Eric Chu (朱立倫) was doing a happy dance.

Those in the DPP calling Wang and Kao “traitors” and demanding the party expel them inadvertently speak about the state of the party. They’re looking for scapegoats, for blood … for someone to pay.

Kicking two highly popular politicians out of the party isn’t constructive, rational or helpful — especially since they were both right and had been trying to warn the party. It’s simply lashing out emotionally.

The party did convene a post-election self-examination group headed by former Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦), who himself also recently lost his advanced degree due to plagiarism. This was a constructive and rational move, but from the sounds of it, only partially helpful.

Enter Lai Ching-te

Reports from people who attended say they attributed the loss to plagiarism scandals, some corruption scandals that broke involving DPP politicians prior to the election and failing to effectively communicate the DPP administration’s successes, both legislative and in handling the pandemic. However, according to those reports, no blame or discussion of mistakes by the then party chair, Tsai Ing-wen, were discussed.

That was a big mistake. Tsai is excellent at handling foreign affairs and China, but she’s not very experienced at local, grassroots politics, having only run in one herself and losing to Eric Chu to become mayor of New Taipei City.

Tsai made some serious strategic mistakes, or allowed them to happen. Among them were the use of the “resist China, protect Taiwan” (抗中保台) slogan without giving it any actual practical meaning in a local context. She also failed to identify that female candidates were outperforming male ones in spite of the trend being clear over a few election cycles now, and the mishandling of the Lin Chih-chien disaster.

There is one bright spot, however. The party has just elected Vice President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) as party chair.

He’s popular both inside the party and with the public. Even better, he ran unopposed, so party unity is behind him, at least for now.

He’s been in electoral politics since the 1990s, and has considerable experience in elections at all levels. He’s also well positioned to handle the biggest corruption scandal, which is centered in Tainan, where Lai was previously mayor, in addition to dealing with a previous scandal there effectively and in such a way as to elevate him to national prominence.

Tackling plagiarism

It appears he has correctly identified the problems facing the party, and has listed them publicly or quietly tackled them. He’s already swapped out the “resist China, protect Taiwan” slogan for a new one: “Peace, protect Taiwan” (和平保台).

He’s got his work cut out for him, however. For example, he announced he is going to deal with the plagiarism problem, and promised to restore the party’s image for honesty.

But how? For new candidates, he’ll probably put in place better vetting mechanisms. The problem for Lai will be in dealing with the existing cases.

Cheng Wen-tsan is going to be a particularly thorny problem to solve. He is so powerful in the party he has his own sub-faction within the New Tide (新系) faction, and Lai is also New Tide.

Further insulating Cheng is that he is very likely going to be in the new cabinet, with some rumors that he might even be chosen as premier. The problem is, as long as he and others remain in the party, the taint of plagiarism will continue to stick to the party.

Then there is the Tainan City Council corruption situation, where the speaker and deputy speaker allegedly used vote buying and voter intimidation to win their positions. Does he wait and let the official investigation and legal process play out, or does he kick them out of the party now and risk losing one of the few city councils under the control of the DPP? Plus, Lai knows the actors in this case personally from his time as mayor.

Factions at the ready

Then, how is he going to manage the various DPP factions? Prior to Tsai Ing-wen, their battles for control within the party were vicious, divisive, and publicly embarrassing.

Fortunately for Lai, he could simply follow the Tsai model of apportioning approximately fixed numbers of key positions to each faction based on their estimated power. The factions, however, may challenge that arrangement.

Worryingly for DPP unity, Lai has been packing the top levels of his party with his own faction. He’s chosen a secretary-general from the Chen Chu (陳菊) sub-faction of New Tide, two of the deputy secretaries-general from New Tide and only one deputy secretary-general from the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (正國會) faction headed by Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍). The other factions are only represented at lower levels.

There is a long road ahead for Lai, but fortunately for the DPP, he is probably best qualified to lead the party where it needs to go.