TAICHUNG (Taiwan News) — Yet again the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) finds itself embroiled in scandal, this time as part of a resurgent "Me Too" movement. DPP Chair Lai Ching-te’s (賴清德) polling in his bid for the presidency has slowly eroded and now appears to have reached a floor of around 35%.
Polls have also shown that if his two main rivals teamed up, he would lose. While Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chair Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) has ruled out cooperation with the Kuomintang (KMT) at the presidential level, if voters see either of Lai’s rivals pulling ahead in the race, there is still a chance voters could opt for ‘dump-save’ (棄保) strategic voting and ‘dump’ the one sinking in the polls to ‘save’ the one most likely to beat Lai.
So, while a split opposition is currently favoring Lai, that may not remain the case. He could still lose. Additionally, the more scandals that pile on make it more likely the party will lose its majority in the legislature.
As explored in a previous column, young voters, who came out in large majorities for the DPP in the last two national elections, are leaving the party in droves to support the TPP. Lai will also find it harder this time around to win over independents, especially if the TPP continues to make inroads.
While Lai and the DPP can rely on a loyal minority partisan base, they need to win over those independents. They have to overcome a major obstacle — the DPP is held to a much higher standard than the KMT, and the DPP has not been living up to high standards recently.
This is the party's own fault. They set themselves up for it historically.
High ideals
On Sept. 28, 1986, a nervous group of idealists and democracy activists gathered at the Grand Hotel Taipei to form the DPP. This was the first declaration of a new political party since World War II, and doing so was illegal under the then-KMT’s one-party state martial law (some KMT puppet parties existed as fig leaves).
They knew the risks, as many had already served jail time for their activism in defiance of the KMT. They were fortunate in their timing. Under pressure from the United States, the government decided to ignore the new party, and eventually lifted the ban on new parties, allowing the party to become legal in 1989.
The KMT, which also traces its history to idealists in the late 19th century in China, was by this point extremely corrupt. The lines between the party, the government, the police, and gangsters were blurry in those days.
As free elections finally came in the 1990s, the DPP initially ran on Taiwan independence. It bombed at the ballot box.
Rot sets in
Over time, they refined their messaging on Taiwan’s sovereignty, but by the mid-nineties, the party was campaigning heavily on combating ‘black gold’ (黑金, corrupt) politics and promoting clean governance. This became one of the two pillars of the DPP’s identity in opposition to the KMT.
That image was hit hard during the second term of then-President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the DPP when corruption scandals appeared involving him and his wife. Both were eventually convicted.
In 2008, Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) boldly took over the DPP as chair and over the next few years orchestrated a remarkable turnaround in the party’s fortunes, and in terms of public perception. That has been coming undone.
That festering rot first came into public view in 2022 during the local election campaigns. It started with the revelation that the DPP’s star candidate for Taoyuan mayor, Lin Chih-chien (林智堅), plagiarized his thesis.
Politicians from all three major parties were found to have plagiarized their theses as well. The problem for the DPP was that the party had many more, and much higher profile, candidates getting caught.
This underlines the pesky problem of being held to a higher standard, as being the “clean” party. It almost certainly cost the DPP all of northern Taiwan in last November’s local elections and contributed to that election being the worst in the party’s history.
Then in November 2022, the ‘88 shooting incident’ occurred involving a DPP politician. This was followed by a corrupt vote-buying scandal to rig the Tainan city council speaker race that led to several arrests.
It is true that there are investigations ongoing over higher-ranking politicians in the KMT, and that in the last election, far more of the vote-buying cases that came to light were in that party. However, the DPP can not run on a platform of ‘we’re somewhat less corrupt than the KMT but more corrupt than the TPP.’
"Me Too" disproportionately hits DPP
Like the wave of thesis scandals, the "Me Too" resurgence in the last week started with accusations against the DPP. True, it has spread to both the KMT, TPP, and beyond, but it has so far been far worse on the DPP side.
Up to now, of the cases involving political figures, roughly two-thirds have involved DPP-affiliated figures, with the KMT and TPP making up the rest. Worse, and more appalling, is that so far it is only the DPP that has been involved in trying to cover up for predators.
It gets worse. Remember how the DPP is trying to win back younger voters?
Guess which two departments in the DPP covered up for predators? The youth and women’s departments. It really does not get worse than that.
Except it does. Lai recently launched a controversial “democratic alliance” strategy to target tough electoral districts. One element of that strategy was recruiting figures from the 2014 Sunflower Movement to run for seats in the legislature.
Lai no doubt was hoping that including them on the slate would appeal to voters in their late twenties and thirties, who were deeply impacted by that movement. By far the most prominent figure Lai got to run was Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆).
The very first "Me Too" story to break a week ago was about the head of the DPP’s women’s department covering up for a predator at the expense of her employee. That woman’s boss at the time was Lin, and he knew she had done the cover-up and chose not to do anything about it. There are calls for him to exit the race, but he has not so far.
Root of problem
Since taking office as party chair in January, Lai has been faced with a scandal-whack-a-mole problem. Each time he has said the right things, but it does not appear he is tackling the root of the problem.
Lai needs to seriously address how the party recruits and trains staff and candidates. The KMT and TPP need to do this as well.
Lai needs to think back over the thesis and the "Me Too" scandals and ask himself a basic question: ‘Why were the people caught in these scandals disproportionately from the DPP?’
