Taiwan Cabinet quits en masse after poll drubbing

TAIPEI — Taiwan’s entire Cabinet resigned today (Dec 1), after the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party suffered its worst defeat in local elections on Saturday. The KMT lost control of districts across the country, including the Mayor’s office in the capital, Taipei.

Premier Jiang Yi-huah led 80 members of his Cabinet to resign en masse following the defeat. Dr Jiang resigned on Saturday to assume responsibility for the KMT’s worst electoral setback since coming to power in 1949.

A caretaker administration will remain in office until after President Ma Ying-jeou appoints a new Cabinet head, Cabinet spokesman Sun Lih-chyun said.

Party officials said yesterday that Mr Ma was expected to resign as chairman of the KMT following the defeat, but other sources said that probably would not happen until at least tomorrow.

Analysts said the move would set off a new power struggle in the party and erode the KMT’s chances in the 2016 presidential poll if infighting persisted.

Taiwan’s ruling party lost nine of the 15 cities and counties it used to control, in what analysts said was voter payback for the Ma team’s poor economic and administrative showing.

So far, Mr Ma has only apologised for the defeat, stopping short of saying whether he would give up the party chairmanship, prompting criticism from KMT mavericks, including some legislators.

Vice-President Wu Den-yih, the first vice-chairman of the KMT, was expected to take over as acting party chief.

The ruling party’s poor performance underscored public scepticism towards Mr Ma’s economic agenda since he came to power in 2008, the centrepiece of which has been opening direct links and liberalising trade with China.

The world’s second-largest economy is at once Taiwan’s largest export market and a historical foe that claims the island as part of its territory and keeps more than 1,000 missiles aimed at Taiwan.

Taiwanese voters are concerned that accepting a bigger role for China in helping revive the economy may mean sacrificing some of the island’s de facto independence.

“There has always been this uneasiness over how far and fast to go,” said director of the Centre for Asia Policy William Stanton at National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu. “I think people have recognised there are a lot of advantages in what’s happening with China. I don’t think they necessarily want to cut back, but they’re worried about going forward.”

The government should change its rhetoric and portray the signing of trade deals as only one of many available economic tools, rather than something that should be done just to follow South Korea or other nations, Taiwan’s Economic Daily News said.

Legislation providing oversight over cross-strait trade deals still needs to be passed before a controversial services-industries deal signed between China and Taiwan last year can go through. Cross-strait negotiators may meet again this year, said Taiwan’s Economic Affairs Minister, to talk about a goods-trade agreement, the Taipei-based Commercial Times reported last month.

Dr George Tsai, a political scientist at Chinese Culture University in Taipei, said the administration was not likely to make progress on these issues in the time it has left, given that the people now demand “more oversight, transparency, responsiveness and efficiency”. AGENCIES