TAIPEI, 6 April 2004 — Divisions have started to appear within Taiwan’s opposition as the parties contesting President Chen Shui-bian’s razor-thin election victory push their conflicting interests, analysts say.
While opposition hard-liners have insisted that anti-Chen protests in the capital should continue, moderates fear further demonstrations will alienate their middle-class supporters who are calling for stability, observers say.
And they believe that the under-fire Chen, leader of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), could cash in on the apparent split.
“The noises from within the opposition have provided the DPP a chance to reduce the pressure by switching the limelight from the disputed election to the emerging conflict within the opposition,” said Wu Tung-yeh, professor of National Chengchi University’s Institute of International Relations.
Since the March 20 ballot, tens of thousands of opposition supporters have protested against Chen’s victory. He beat his nearest rival, Kuomintang (KMT) opposition leader Lien Chan, by less than 30,000 votes, or 0.22 percent of the 13.5 million votes cast.
They have demanded an independent inquiry into an election-eve shooting of the president and his deputy, Annette Lu, by an unidentified gunmen amid claims it was staged.
They say the shooting, in which the pair sustained only minor wounds, helped to swing the vote behind the DPP.
The opposition has also demanded an amendment to the existing election law and an immediate recount of the ballots. Legal wrangling over the recount is under way.
But while some KMT politicians have been more outspoken in their criticism than others, the most prominent attacks have come from the People First Party (PFP), a splinter group that joined the KMT in order to challenge Chen in the polls.
“The PFP tend to be radical. The performance of PFP parliamentarians in the rallies was simply a reflection of the party’s structure,” said Emile C.J. Sheng, political science professor of Soochow University. Wang Jin-pyng, parliamentary speaker, chose not to attend a 50,000-strong opposition rally in the capital over the weekend. And while Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou, the party’s next presidential hopeful, joined Lien and other politicians in the rally, he showed little sympathy as he ordered police to disperse hundreds of protesters staging an illegal rally in front of the presidential office early Sunday.
