Undermining Taiwan’s Democracy, the DPP Should Itself Undergo Transformation for Justice

 Undermining Taiwan’s Democracy, the DPP Should Itself Undergo Transformation for Justice

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

July 6, 2019
 Translation of an Excerpt

President Tsai Ing-wen says that the DPP is a democratic political party; in fact, although the DPP uses democracy as the call, it however walks further and further from democracy both within the party and without. The Tsai government, under the guise of "transformational justice" and "national security misgivings", has adopted anti-democratic measures in the past three years to the extent of "difficult to count."

In a democratic country, political parties have a competitive relationship with each other, but the Tsai government, nevertheless, has adopted, through various revisions of the law, high-intensity management over political parties. The Statute Governing Ill-gotten Party’ Assets is a case in point; the Tsai government may, based on this, dispose of KMT party assets at will, pushing the control of political parties to the extreme. The series of legislative actions for "transformational justice" has also, without exception, specific targets.

The Tsai government even goes to the extreme of using the grounds of "national security" to control political parties. Tsai Ing-wen proclaimed yesterday that following the last jigsaw puzzle piece for the "Five Laws of National Security ", she would finish the legislative action on the amendment bill to the "Statute Governing Cross-Strait Relations", setting stringent rules for people, juridical persons, organizations or institutions who are considered to be agents of the PRC. But may we ask, what is an agent? What are the standards? This bill, using "national security" as camouflage, in violation of democratic principles, has even expanded to the scope of basic human rights, such as people's freedom of speech.

There are also other legislative actions in violation of democracy, for instance, the bad revision of the Plebiscite Act delinking plebiscite elections from general elections, to be held every other year, virtually handing down a death sentence to the Plebiscite Act. The rules for preserving the integrity of prosecutorial investigations were amended and went into effect last month, massively easing the freedom of media reporting, but at the same time, incorporating, stealthily, that on the grounds of "national security" the case may be divulged, not needing to observe the principle of preserving the integrity of prosecutorial investigations. These retrogressions of democracy were done through legislative action, to say nothing about the abuse of authority, violations of the Constitution, and anti-democratic moves through administrative discretion or personnel means.

Now, the Tsai government, however, using the grounds of "national security" and "transformational justice" in order to stay in power, has created democratic counter-currents; the DPP has made itself the only political party that should be transformed for justice.

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