What does the Democratic Progressive Party congress reveal for the future of Taiwan's ruling party under President Lai Ching-te? TaiwanPlus speaks with political analyst Courtney Donovan Smith.
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00:00And this is obviously a chance for all of the main members of that main ruling party
00:05to come together and to discuss the direction that their party should take.
00:09So conspicuous in her absence was the former president, Tsai Ing-wen.
00:13Why do you think she may have missed this big meeting?
00:15Well, there's some speculation on this, but most of it seemed to be centred on she just
00:20isn't that interested.
00:22She's never really liked the whole faction system, and that's really getting ugly right
00:28now.
00:29And most of the reports basically have her quotas saying something to the effect that
00:33she just is not that interested.
00:35Now keep in mind that basically since Lai has completely thrown out her formula, and
00:42now they're back to open warfare within the party, she is not part of any faction.
00:50And she's not in charge of the party, so there's not really a whole lot she could have done
00:54anyway even if she was there.
00:57I suspect that she thought, you know, kind of what's the point?
01:00Could you tell us a bit about what other kind of factions or areas of the party there are
01:05and how we might see that creating a problem for the party going forward?
01:09Well, since the beginning of the DPP, there have been factions within the party as it
01:14came together from different groups of people when they founded the party.
01:18Initially, they were a lot more ideological in their nature.
01:23I think more, it's more now, about power and patronage and getting plumb positions
01:28within the party and government and plumb positions in state-owned enterprises when
01:34they're in power.
01:35They battled it out, and it got really quite ugly in the 90s and 2000s.
01:42And their infighting would play out in the press, and so it was kind of embarrassing
01:48for the party, and it made the party look very disunified.
01:53And given that we are witnessing this infighting, these different factions, and it often plays
01:59out kind of quite nastily in the media here, would you say that the ruling Democratic Progressive
02:04Party is a healthy political party?
02:07It's quite concerning that Lai is consolidating so much power in New Tide members and his
02:18loyalists from Tainan.
02:19I point out two risks, one of which has come to pass, which is that the factions are now
02:25openly fighting with each other.
02:28But this over-consolidation of power within his loyalists, his clique, and New Tide and
02:35his allies, the concerning part about this is that it makes it so incestuous, a relationship
02:43between these people.
02:44And keep in mind, the factions are kind of quasi-in-the-open, quasi-secret organizations.
02:51And so what's concerning is it opens up a lot more potential for systemic corruption.