Apple Daily, not a publication normally noted for its insightful analysis (Front Page Formula = Variations on a theme of Sex / Blood / Moral and or Financial Scandal), has come out with
a rebuttal of Jaw Shaw-kong's recent warnings to the KMT that losing the Taipei Mayorship would impact Ma's chances of re-election in 2012. Tellingly, it infers that Taiwanese may play a balancing game - using elections to distribute political power locally and nationally between the KMT and DPP so that one party does not control all branches of state and government:
the KMT-led "pan-blue" camp may not necessarily lose the 2012 presidential election if it loses the Taipei mayoral race. Even if the camp loses all of the five mayoral seats up for grabs, it would still have ample time and chances to win back voters because the next presidential race would still be more than a year and four months away.
Even if the DPP manages to perform extremely well in the upcoming elections, its chance of staging a comeback in the 2012 presidential election may not be better because there are many variables ahead of that race, including how the party governs any municipalities it wins.
Su's remarks were even more outrageous because they were undemocratic, or did not meet the norms of democratic politics. If voters elect a DPP stalwart to be the new Taipei mayor, it means that they want the new mayor to check and balance the effects of the ECFA and other open-door policies toward China.
'Check and balance', 'open-door policies' - Is this the legendary Taiwanese pragmatism getting spooked by the pace and lack of transparency of Taiwan's post-2008 China policies?
