Tsai Ing-wen’s Three Outrageous Tramplings on Vox Populi After Election Defeat

Tsai Ing-wen’s Three Outrageous Tramplings on Vox Populi After Election Defeat

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

February 19, 2019

 Translation of an Excerpt

It hasn’t been three full months since last year's elections, but the electorate has amply understood the Tsai government’s various tactics of coldness, evasion, and high-handedness; the "new vox populi" of the elections has been completely stamped under the feet. After having completed the clearing of responsibilities, the powers-that-be immediately completely forgot why they suffered a disastrous defeat and why they were jettisoned by the electorate, exhibiting a posture of the reigning of haughty generals and arrogant troops.

In the last three months, the Tsai government not only had no willingness to respond to the public’s expectations, but also repeatedly trampled on them, showing arrogance on their faces. Tsai Ing-wen’s first trampling on vox populi was bared in the deployment of the Cabinet line-up. Tsai Ing-wen surprisingly promoted three DPP candidates defeated in the local elections to the central government, with Su Tseng-chang and Chen Chi-mai appointed as Premier and his deputy, and Lin Chia-lung as Minister of Transportation and Communications. This awarding of high offices on the basis of "the defeated become princes," showing Tsai Ing-wen's haughty airs of "power is supreme, who could challenge me,” not only slapping the opposition party in the face, but also kicking heavily the vox populi, exhibiting that she couldn’t care less about the feelings of the electorate.

Her second trampling on the vox populi was to ignore the results of the plebiscite elections, continuing to walk on the tightrope of her perilous energy policies. Last year end, three plebiscite propositions were adopted, i.e., "anti-air pollution", "using nuclear power to nurture green energy" and "anti-Shen-ao coal-fired power plant," casting a vote of no confidence in Tsai Ing-wen's energy policies. Who knew, Economics Minister Shen Jong-chin announced that the energy assessments in coping with the plebiscite election, results using surprisingly as grounds “impracticable objectively” and "localities do not support" to veto each and every one. Nuclear power’s decommissioning would not be extended, nor would it be reactivated; he even threatened by saying that cutting fire-powered generation would create a crisis of power shortages.

Tsai Ing-wen’s third trampling on the vox populi is that she ignored the expectations of the vox populi, continuing to tighten the shackles on cross-Strait relations, and restricting the activities of local government chiefs to engage in cross-Strait economic-trade exchanges; she especially launched a vehement total attack against Han Kuo-yu, and planned to massively extend the ban on retired high-ranking officials and generals to visit the Mainland.

What is astonishing is that the DPP’s memory of the electoral defeat is so short, and Tsai’s excitement for power, on the other hand, is so formidable and long-lasting. Looking back at the drama played by the Presidential Palace and the Cabinet in the last three months, not one failed to trample on the vox populi. For this kind of ruling party, would the electorate still entertain fantasies?

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