DPP, Thy Name Is Fat Cat

DPP, Thy Name Is Fat Cat

China Times Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

February 19, 2019

 Translation of an Excerpt

 A female secretary named Wu of the Bureau of Public Works in Taoyuan City Hall went to the site of the Lantern Festival, but because she was not wearing an ID badge, the security guards barred her entry. She then posted an article on her Facebook page saying that "The security guards surprisingly did not know that I work in their superior agency," claiming that "I will telephone City Hall chief secretary, letting all security guards know me." Media outlets revealed that this secretary had quite some connections; she entered the race for Tainan City Council, but lost the election, she had worked in the "Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Commission," then got a job in Kaohsiung City Hall through the political spoils system, and last month, she got a job as secretary in Taoyuan City Hall. Observing the background and loci of the job changes of this secretary, who flaunted her authority and prestige, this could be said to be the paradigm of the DPP's culture of political spoils. 

With regard to the DPP’s political spoils culture, criticisms from public opinion have long been around, and have again become the focus of commentaries. The reasons that the DPP government’s political spoils have met with popular resentment, elevating the intensity of “hating the DPP,” are three at a minimum: First, the DPP government has expanded with all efforts the scope of political spoils, having forcibly dug out fat-cat positions that had not existed before. For instance, China Airlines Travel Agency, a subsidiary enterprise of China Airlines, used to have as its chairman a high-level executive of China Airlines who concurrently held the job, but after the DPP came to power, it forcibly arranged a former legislator who had no relevant professional expertise to be its chairman, with an annual salary of NT$3 million and a chauffeured-company car. With such bad table manners, the political spoils of course elicited a backlash from the vox populi.

Second, although arranging personnel appointments through political spoils is not necessarily based on the fact that the principal possesses a high degree of professionalism as a requirement, generally speaking the principal cannot be totally devoid of it. Nevertheless, the DPP government’s political spoils, on the other hand, highly emphasize connections and not a bit on professionalism. For instance, Tai Chein, a PhD specializing in duck-raising, was appointed chairman of CPC Taiwan; Wu Yi-qing, a 30-something daughter of a DPP bigwig, was appointed chairwoman of Taiwan Styrene Monomer Corporation with an annual salary of NT$10 million; Wu Yin-ning, a member of the young literati in the farmers movement, was appointed general manager of Taipei Farmers Market. All these elicited high degree disputes from society, with extremely bad reactions from the people; the DPP government, nevertheless, has not paid any attention at all, which of course will deepen the degree “people hating the DPP” sentiment. 

Third, since the DPP government came to office, the league of those awarded fat-cat jobs through the political spoils system, we don’t know whether it is because the DPP has complete control of the legislative and executive branches of the government, have thus been acting with not even an iota of concern, paying little attention to their jobs; conversely, they have often become embroiled in scandals, among which the most outrageous was Kuo Chun-ming, the former chairman of Taiwan Water Corporation. During office hours, he went with a married woman to a motel and was exposed by the media; he was forced to quickly resign. (Currently on the official website of Taiwan Water Corporation, the "incumbent chairman" is still Kuo Chun-ming).

The DPP government has thought up all means to increase fat-cat jobs through the spoils system, rounding up many fat cats utterly devoid of professionalism to occupy the vacancies, and then these fat cats who had been awarded spoils frequently became embroiled in controversies or scandals. This is why people are especially disgusted with the spoils system of the government, thus hating the DPP all the more. Under the system of responsible politics, in the 2020 general elections, the DPP will eat its own bitter fruits.

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