Premier Su’s Admonitions toward Han Kuo-yu Show His True Colors

 Premier Su’s Admonitions toward Han Kuo-yu Show His True Colors

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

June 20, 2019

 Translation of an Excerpt

President Tsai, in the DPP presidential primary with Lai Ching-te, lauded several times Premier Su Tseng-chang for his experience and forcefullness, freeing her from all worries in the rear. On the one hand, Tsai’s praises hinted her criticism of Lai Ching-te’s inadequate implementation force when serving as premier, and on the other hand, however, affirmed that Su Tseng-chang actively helped her in striving for re-election. For this reason, after the "Tsai-Lai ticket" became an impossibility, the substitution of the "Tsai-Su ticket" was in circulation. The problem is whether Su would overdo it when he used all his might to push for his governance record, ending up affecting Tsai Ing-wen’s re-election bid. This probably is also something the DPP must watch for.

In his five months of premiership, several points in Su Tseng-chang’s approach of governance have elicited discussions in outside circles. First, he revived the “harsh-official-style” leadership, lacking a fundamental direction of policy, while focusing on minutiae, frequently admonishing and humiliating his subordinates in public. Second, seizing the opportunity that President Tsai was busy in the primary, Su endlessly utilized his power to make personnel appointments, eliminating people belonging to other factions and arranging places for his own men. Many of these appointments were not convincing, and their unusualness had reached the extent of infringing on presidential powers. Third, he considered the entire Executive branch as the DPP’s machinery for election campaigns, completely disregarding the separation of state and party, or rules of democracy, and even striking a bureaucratic pose as ruler from the central government in dealing with local governments, eliciting adverse reactions.

A recent case in point which attracts attention is that Su Tseng-chang utilized a Cabinet meeting and the issue of dengue fever prevention and control funds to initiate an attack on Kaohsiung City Mayor Han Kuo-yu. Premier Su used rhetoric to sarcastically ridicule Han; Su Tseng-chang’s purpose for giving Han a hard time and humiliation was nothing but utilizing his executive power to help Tsai Ing-wen in attacking her greatest imaginary foe, and also to demonstrate his own contributions. As the DPP does not draw a line between the state and the party, many Green camp figures seem to be happy to applaud and ovate, believing that such strong-armed tactics are needed in the general elections. Then again, it is one thing for the central government to approve or reject local governments’ requests for construction funds, but dengue fever prevention and control after all concerns people’s health and lives; how could it be dealt with cavalierly? Premier Su utilized dengue fever prevention and control to give Han Kuo-yu a hard time; besides showing his own narrow-mindedness, it also exposes the ruling party’s indifference to issues related to people’s livelihood, having only electoral and partisan thinking in handling problems. How could such a ruling party escape people’s hatred?

What Su Tseng-chang wants to admonish Han Kuo-yu is: “Don't just think about elections, you should take good care of city governance, which is a mayor's fundamental task.” Han Kuo-yu must of course bear in mind this admonition; otherwise, regardless of how big the pep rallies are, once something goes wrong in the city administration, the electoral dream will still leave him far away. However, conversely, Su’s loud admonition to Han Kuo-yu showed his true colors, reflecting his own twisted countenance. Su’s most serious myth is to use the entire Executive branch to serve as Tsai Ing-wen’s campaign team, on the one hand, exhausting all means to block or vilify opponents, and on the other, using executive policy decisions as shots in the arm for the campaign, endlessly sprinkling programs by throwing around money and issuing subsidies. These approaches, besides undermining Taiwan’s democratic foundation, will also leave debts to our children and grandchildren.

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