After defeat, DPP needs to work on party unity
By Paul Lin 林保華
The defeat of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in January’s presidential election was a big disappointment, not least because Tsai, if elected, could have used her popularity and the administrative resources available to her to tame the DPP’s wild factions and promote reform and transformation within the party.
For the sake of the DPP’s electoral chances, I avoided publicly criticizing the party during the campaign. Open criticism might have added to distrust of the DPP that stems from its short history of holding the reins of government, as well as problems caused by the party itself and media sensationalizing its internal power struggles. Now that the election is over, the DPP certainly needs to review its performance, otherwise it will not be able to learn from the experience. However, criticism should focus on issues, not individuals.
When the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was locked in a struggle with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), then-CCP leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東) proposed three “magic weapons” to defeat the KMT — party building, a united front and armed struggle. For the DPP in Taiwan, the equivalent of an armed struggle is its campaign strategies, while its united front work consists of attracting unaligned voters to isolate its pan-blue opponents.
