TAICHUNG (Taiwan News) — On Saturday (Oct. 14) Kuomintang (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) representatives met to discuss forging a unity presidential ticket to unite the two opposition parties to take on the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) candidate Lai Ching-te (賴清德).
After the three-hour meeting, Hou Yu-ih’s (侯友宜) presidential campaign manager King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) of the KMT and Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) presidential campaign chief Huang Shan-shan (黃珊珊) of the TPP, with considerable courtesy and deference to each other, announced the results to the press. The main breakthrough was both parties agreed with Ko’s suggestion of holding three debates between the two opposition candidates.
This was a very interesting and unusual development. It has the potential benefit of informing and enlightening opposition supporters about where each candidate stands on important issues, which would be a good thing.
They also agreed on some policies and stances a unity ticket would campaign on, but not others. The policies they agreed on, and disagreed upon, are an interesting snapshot of the current thinking of the KMT and the more unconventional thinking from the Ko camp, and we may examine that in a future column.
The big breakdown in negotiations came from choosing who would head the ticket. Unsurprisingly, each side proposed methods that strongly favor their own candidate.
The TPP proposed hiring five polling companies to determine which would be the stronger candidate, with half the results conducted by landline, and the other half done by cell phone. Ko described this as a scientific and transparent method.
It also nakedly benefits himself. In the latest (Oct. 11) Taiwan News Poll of Polls Ko holds about a five-point lead over Hou and in the 13 polls taken since Sept. 20, Ko led in 11 of them.
Fooling no one
The KMT is proposing an “open democratic primary” which would be held at polling stations in either the 22 cities and counties nationwide or in the 73 legislative constituencies, and voters would be required to show their National Identity Cards. It would not actually be “open” as voters would be required to sign a pledge that they "identify with the political direction to form an opposition alliance to oust the DPP," effectively blocking any pan-green voters who answer that honestly.
The KMT claimed to be supporting this physical primary because it would be more scientific, avoid the risk of pan-green voters “stuffing the ballot” in polling, and because it is the standard used in “the US, France, and South Korea.” They cited examples of primaries held in the 1990s when they were more common, and the example of how the KMT does this regularly in the race for party chair.
These purported “reasons” fooled no one, least of all Ko. The KMT has an extensive national get-out-the-vote machine and boosts around a quarter of a million members compared to the TPP’s small organization and only around 12,000 members (as of last autumn, they may have more now).
The KMT’s supporters are also generally older and have the time, resources, and interest to vote, while the TPP has mostly young, busy, and less well-financed supporters. As political scientist Nathan Batto memorably put it in his superb blog Frozen Garlic, “It’s not hard to imagine a few young people on Gogoros being swamped by legions of (older) voters getting off charter buses from every corner of Hsinchu or Pingtung Counties.”
Taking potshots
Ko has flatly rejected the KMT’s primary suggestion and both camps have been taking potshots at each other in the press since. Hou’s campaign manager King accused Ko of turning hostile, while Ko accused King of not wanting to cooperate and having an “ulterior motive.”
A proposed second meeting now appears to have been called off as the Ko camp says that until the Hou camp proposes something concrete, there is no point in “meeting just to meet.” Both sides say are still open to cooperating, but it appears they are at an impasse.
It will almost certainly remain at an impasse because each party has solid reasons why they will not compromise.
The KMT thinks that as the bigger player, it should naturally be the dominant force. They are right on this, as they have pointed out they have 38 legislators and over 300 city and county councilors.
All of the TPP’s legislators and councilors could fit in a bus. The KMT also has that extensive national get-out-the-vote machine, while the TPP has a geographically spotty get-out-the-vote tricycle.
It is also very hard to imagine the proud, over 100-year-old KMT, playing second fiddle to an unconventional upstart. That would make them look weak, and that would be too much to swallow.
That sinking Soong feeling
If anything, the incentives for Ko and the TPP to insist on top billing are even greater. To establish his four-year-old party as a major player going forward, Ko has to ensure his party has a clear identity separate from the other parties.
Running as the vice presidential candidate and on the same campaign platform would make the party appear to just be a mini-KMT along for the ride, like the family dog sticking its head out the window with its tongue flapping in the wind. Ko needs to let the public know he is in the driver’s seat of the TPP.
Ko knows full well what failure to do so looks like. In 2004, another four-year-old party, the People’s First Party (PFP), was riding even higher than the TPP is now.
Their then charismatic and popular leader (as hard as that is to imagine now), James Soong (宋楚瑜), through a series of inducements and promises to give him considerable power in a KMT administration, accepted running on a joint KMT-PFP ticket with himself as the vice presidential candidate.
They very narrowly lost that election. Worse for the PFP, the public no longer saw them as a distinct party.
That made it easy for the KMT to poach, or in many cases, repatriate PFP people into the far better-resourced KMT. The PFP was largely swallowed up by the KMT, and the party slid into irrelevance.
Ko also needs to stay at the top of the ticket due to the publicity it generates for his party. If the TPP can do well on the non-district party list legislative vote that will not only possibly give the party the balance of power in the legislature, but it will also entitle them to large government subsidies that would put them on a much stronger footing compared to the KMT and DPP.
Ko might even think there is a chance he could win on his own. A few outlying polls have him just a few points behind Lai, and if he can chip off some of Hou and independent candidate Terry Gou’s (郭台銘) support he could close the gap.
These are the reasons why both Hou and Ko have repeatedly stated that they will be running to the end at the top of the ticket. Both camps were aware of all of this, so why have they talked up running a unity ticket and gone through with the meeting?
Political kabuki theater
It was all political kabuki theater. There were two reasons they went through the motions on this.
The first is to respond to pressure from their supporters. In hypothetical Ko/Hou or Hou/Ko matchups against Lai, they would win by a large margin in most polling.
There is a significant portion of the population that very much wants to “take down” the DPP. Some simply because they think it is time for a change in party, others because they loathe the DPP and view them as corrupt and even dictatorial.
These people have seen those hypothetical matchup polls and are desperate to see it happen. They are not looking at it from the perspective of the candidates or the parties, who have the considerations outlined in this column to consider.
They also are just looking at the headline numbers, which may be somewhat misleading. In those hypothetical matchups, these polls generally assume Terry Gou is no longer in the race.
So far, most of those hypothetical matchups show a Ko/Hou ticket being stronger. Interestingly, when the Ko/Hou ticket is the option the difference in support is only between one and three points lower than the aggregate of all the support for the three opposition candidates.
That might not last, however. A unity ticket would have to have a unity platform, which would have to include many KMT talking points. That may turn off younger and more independent voters once that becomes clear, especially if it includes the “1992 Consensus.”
With all the pressure being put on the candidates and parties to run a unity ticket, they had to respond. By going through with the meeting they can now tell their supporters that they tried, then point to the other camp’s “intransigence” for it failing to happen.
The second reason is that they likely figured that it was worth a try, even if it was highly unlikely to happen, to see if they could get the other side to back down. One three-hour meeting was worth taking that gamble.
There is one thing that could happen that could change everything and put this back on the table. That would be if either Ko’s poll numbers suddenly started sliding and/or Hou’s started surging. If this happened, the KMT would no doubt rush to accept Ko’s polling plan.
That would put Ko into quite a quandary!
