Cabinet Reshuffle: Are There Any Expectations for Pleasant Surprises?

Cabinet Reshuffle: Are There Any Expectations for Pleasant Surprises?

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

February 5, 2018

 Translation of an Excerpt

Calls for a Cabinet reshuffle are up again. For the Tsai government, whose poll ratings have been plummeting, the Cabinet reshuffle, in fact, is no longer an option now, but a must, otherwise, even Premier Lai Ching-te’s popularity would be dragged into a quagmire. The problem is, according to President Tsai’s taste for personnel assignments, in coping with the enormous internal pressure from the government for seeking officialdom within the Green camp, plus the political needs for the election year, whether the Tsai government could arrange a line-up that could catch the eyes of the people is still a question.

There are three serious blind spots in the construction of the Tsai government: the first blind spot is the Green camp’s exclusivity. For the properties of talents, such as provincial origin, color, faction, and family make-up, etc., the DPP not only has strong exclusivity, but also often criticizes any attack without reservation; this makes professional talents view entering the government as a no-no, fearing that one little misstep would lead to their being left black and blue.

The second blind spot is that Tsai's stratosphere is too narrow. Basically, election campaigning and governing the country are two entirely different things; the President in actuality has enormous responsibility and power. If he or she can rely one small circle of people who belong to the same stratosphere and seek comfort from one another, then in the absence of stimuli and challenges of differing voices, it would be extremely likely one would lose the sensitivity of coping with external situations, even creating serious misjudgments, which is a perilous thing.

The third blind spot is the DPP’s narrow mindset that "the party is higher than the state." Observing the DPP's mentality as twice the ruling party, in both cases the party’s interests have reigned supreme without even a fig leaf, throwing away the public interests of the state and society. Under these circumstances, those who have had “outstanding” performance in the Cabinet team are mostly political animals with an acute sense of smell or politicians apt in pandering, lacking self-dignity, while the other Cabinet members only beg to remain voiceless and thus faultless

Such an imbalanced team may satisfy the needs of the ruling party, but how could the people be satisfied? If this time the Cabinet reshuffle is but inconsequential moves of some chessmen, then that would be no more than going through the motions. Please give the people some pleasant surprises!

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