Taiwan's Christmas in October

Notice the deafening roar of silence from the pro-green attack dogs this week. Blogs and discussion boards are empty of heated debate and the usual KMT bashing. In general, I must say that feels like Christmas in Taiwan, with a wonderful layer of humility covering everything green around us.

We're currently between election cycles, so it's to be expected that approval ratings might come down a bit. However, a recent survey shows the ROC President 陳水扁Chen Shui-Bian's approval has dropped to 25 percent, down nearly 10 percent in the last month alone. The DPP's fortunes rose with Chen's and are now falling in tandem, with the party down to 24 percent approval ratings and facing strong dissatisfaction. Though you won't hear many English-speaking blogs or newspapers talking about it, the Kaohsiung MRT Scandal just won't go away.

The more we look at this scandal, the more the DPP squirms. As I mentioned before, an interesting aspect of this case is that it doesn't allow for much of the finger-pointing and blame-shifting that is typical of Taiwan politics, simply because the DPP has nearly complete control of the city government and involved organizations. Previous DPP poster-boy 謝長廷 Frank Hsieh's attempts to place the blame on the previous KMT mayor have failed miserably, and now two presidential advisors have badly fallen from grace and a vice minister doesn't look too good as the investigation continues. Hmm... now, do those advisors take orders from? It's only a matter of time until somebody cracks and gives up their boss for a reduced sentence. I'm not sure what's more amusing: watching Chen squirm or trying to figure out where he'll duck and dive next. He's promised to make a "a thorough self-criticism".

Cut to a lonely night in the Presidential Building. The man who controls the fate of millions and can single-handedly start a war between two nuclear powers is alone, self-criticizing.
Now, A-Bian, A-Bian has been bad, very bad. How should A-Bian punish A-Bian? A-Bian is really, really sorry. Can A-Bian ever forgive A-Bian? Okay, A-Bian, but if it happens again, A-Bian is telling A-Bian.

Though he unfortunately plans to continue speaking in the third person, CSB's also promised to resign if found to be connected. I hope he hasn't gotten so used to friendly local prosecutors and governments investigating irregularities (like assassination attempts) that he thinks he can sweep this under the rug. With all this media pressure, the usual bag of tricks isn't going to work. Quick, find a highly-placed scapegoat!

The rest of the DPP may not be so friendly or willing, anyway. 2 DPP legislators are being investigated for fraud and sometime ally 李登輝, Lee Tung-Hui is reportedly feuding with CSB. DPP candidate for Taipei County Commissioner 羅文嘉 Luo Wen-Jia's publicity stunt to create a DPP reform movement has unexpectedly blossomed, tapping into internal dissatisfaction at having sacrificed so many principles to get into power. I've yet to hear anything really bad said about the idea from either side of the political divide. As even the pro-green Taipei Times points out, the DPP has been selling reform while sinking into corruption for so long that it can no longer be ignored.