FEBRUARY 2012

DEMOCRACY & PROGRESS

Chair Tsai Ing-wen steps down, Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu becomes acting chair
On Feb. 29, Chair Tsai Ing-wen stepped down as party chair, but a ceremony was also held to welcome Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu as acting chair. Below are remarks by Chair Tsai Ing-wen and Acting Chair Chen Chu. Chair Tsai Ing-wens Farewell Speech Today is my last Central Standing Committee Meeting as DPP chair, and it is also time for me to bid farewell. Normally, this process comes easily for me, but at this moment, I realize that it is harder than I thought because we have spent so much time in the fight together. In these past four years, I have transformed from being a scholar and a government official to party chair. Firstly, I would like to offer my deepest gratitude for giving me your embrace, trust, support and encouragement in these past four years. Although I know that sometimes I may have appeared stubborn or more insistent on some issues, I really would like to thank you for tolerating me, especially to my colleagues seated here today, who with even more extensive political experience, have allowed me to engage in my own way of conducting politics. Working with you is a lifetimes honor and pride.

PAGE 1

 I would like to once again give my deepest apologies to the Central Standing Committee and to our supporters. It is the greatest regret of my life not being able to lead this party back into power. Recalling my first Central Standing Committee as party chair, I kept reminding myself that no matter what, I had to lead this party into standing back on its feet again. For the last four years, from frustrations and setbacks, we have walked towards the light, and this journey for me is something that I will never forget in my lifetime. Many times I have said before and I would like to repeat it here today: even if I am no longer the party chair, I will continue to be a lifetime member of the party, standing by the DPP in guarding this piece of land and in pursuing fairness and justice. I understand that many of you are concerned about my next steps, but in reality, my view towards this is quite simple. Becoming the person that I am today stems from the opportunity granted to me by the public, and with this, I carry with me an accumulation of societal assets. Therefore, my future involves returning these societal assets to Taiwan. Without the role of party chair, I will use my identity as a civilian to cross any political boundaries and exert even more passion to

FEBRUARY 2012 view, listen, stay in touch - and from a different position and perspective - catch on with the public. Later on, I will return what I learned from this experience to assist the DPP in expanding its base. Even by leaving the party chair position, I will not forget my mission, which is to find the power of change for Taiwan. Taiwan has gone through a period of authoritarianism and inclination to conservatism, and it must break itself from the past and detach its emotions to bravely face change and to courageously move forward. I am willing to exert all my energy and devote myself to public welfare. To all public interest groups that need assistance in promotion and endorsement of public issues, please do not hesitate to contact my office. Naturally, the remaining financial contributions of the presidential campaign must be spent on the public. I will use these funds properly and apply them for public interests, and I will transform their contributions into a consolidation of power towards public welfare uses. I also wish to embark on finding the more than 6 million people who voted for me and supported the DPP as well as those who wanted to give me their vote. I want to personally give them thanks and to offer my apologies. I understand that festivities do not last forever, and today marks the ending of a personal period in my life. Nevertheless, this represents a new beginning for the entire DPP, and I have faith that under the leadership of Acting Chair and Mayor Chen Chu, society will be able to see our self-reflection and our neveryielding toughness. I also have faith that with a DPP that is undergoing changes, Mayor Chen Chu PAGE 2

 will steer a stable hand and play a role in establishing continuity and lay a foundation for the DPPs next phase of development. Lastly, I leave with the words of Samuel Huntington from his book, The Third Wave: History does not advance in a straight forward fashion, but with a leaders wisdom and determination, history will move forward. The leader I mention here is not in the form of a person, but in the form of our party. We must have faith in the values that we represent, and we must believe in our responsibility to protect Taiwan. We must believe we are capable of making Taiwan better, and we must have faith that we can bring a fairer and more justified society. What is most important is that we must have faith that the DPP will be a leading power in moving history forward. Goodbye my friends, goodbye DPP! Thank you!

FEBRUARY 2012

PAGE 3

FEBRUARY 2012

Acting Chair Chen Chus Acceptance Speech

Greater Kaohsiung is now even bigger than Tokyo City, and there are many challenging tasks to resolve. However, with the persuasion of many colleagues, I have decided to become the DPPs acting chair in order to play the role of stabilizing the party, welcoming the next chair and to assist the DPP out of its difficult times. I also hope to lead the party into allowing an opportunity for reflection after Chair Tsai Ing-wens responsible resignation so that the DPP, from its frustration, be able to stand up once again. In these three months as acting chair, I promise to pave the road for the DPPs non-stopping reform as well as continuing the upgrade and pro-

Following Chair Tsai Ing-wens footsteps as an acting chair will not be an easy task. I have been an old soldier and one of the DPPs 18 founding members, and I must say that the road has been full of twists and turns with non-stopping ups and downs. However, even under difficult circumstances, the DPP has been able to thrive and mature, touching the people and gaining their support, but we have also seen their disappointment and frustration. Here today, I would like to give my deepest appreciation to Chair Tsai Ing-wen for her willingness to shoulder the DPPs good and bad times and for leading the party through unstable times. I had initially rejected the position of the acting chair due to the challenging tasks of administering Kaohsiung. Especially, after the merging of city and county,

PAGE 4

FEBRUARY 2012 the party and persuade our community to join-in on the project. The DPP has a responsibility to Taiwan, and we must not loose our spirit of reform as a result of setbacks. We must continue promoting the DPPs core values. The meaning of sustenance for the DPP must not be to win the 2016 elections, bur rather, it must be our promise to make Taiwan better. To gain office represents only a necessary step, but we must not loose our ideals in order to gain power. Perhaps the process will be challenging, but I believe this difficulty will not surpass the hardships faced when the party was founded. I hope that we keep our love and sincerity and I promise a fair and beautiful Taiwan. In the next elections within the party, I plan to execute party affairs smoothly, and I will ensure that the power transfer process is transparent, open and steady. In order to maintain party unity and harmony, I hope that the Secretary-General, directors and staff remain by my side to continue exerting all their efforts in handling party affairs. Lastly, I wish to convey to you how the DPP is a democratic and diverse political party. In regards to the outside world denouncing our factional problems, I believe that this is a normal phenomenon, but it is important to understand that there is no single factional interest capable of overriding the interests of the entire party. Watching forty years of ups and downs in Taiwan, I have also along the way watched the DPP stumble. At this moment, I have personally decided to shoulder the responsibility to express my love for the DPP and my passion for Taiwan, and I hope to count on all our party colleagues to believe in the DPP.

gressive efforts started by Chair Tsai Ing-wen. I believe that the DPP is an open and democratic party that listens to many different voices. These voices represent a form of democratic development, and they should always be heard and respected. I plan to create a party reform committee that will implement improvements in party organization and policy in order for the next chair to employ as reference. From the DPP perspective, it is important to be in power, but it is even more important to convince the Taiwanese people why it is important to be in office. The DPP must lay out its values and its plans to make a better and fairer Taiwan. I urge all my party colleagues to help me in re-finding the partys original ideals, which are even more important than technical election strategies. As long as we are able to show our sincerity and care for Taiwan, I definitely believe that we will be able to touch Taiwanese society. We will let everyone feel that the DPP is part of the public and gain their support in order for the DPP to carry on with even greater strength. Facing the immediate situation and challenges, the DPP must adopt a pragmatic approach to confront these issues. Even though the process might appear slow-moving, it is something that cannot be done at once and it needs gradual steps. We must use our sincerity to form a consensus within

PAGE 5

FEBRUARY 2012

DPP produces Self-Reection Report

At the Central Standing Committee of Feb. 22, the committee approved the 2012 Self-Reflection Report, which highlights key areas that posed a challenge for the DPP in the past election, providing some key strategies to combat these challenges. The main issues highlighted in the report were: 1. Enhancement of the DPPs Governing Capabilities Using its presence in the legislature and governing counties, the DPP must set out to upgrade the trust of the people towards its governing capabilities. In addition, the DPP must engaging in the training of future leaders and gathering voter association to the party. One of the main reasons for the 2012 election loss can be attributed to consequent decision shifts by undecided voters and the lack of adequate support from urban middle class voters. In regards to the basic support, the DPP, as a small party, lagged behind the KMT, and this represented the crucial victory barrier. The legislature represents the most important policy platform for opposition parties. In the future, the party headquarters and the legislative caucus must enhance its policy standpoints and lead the country in domestic issues. The DPP must engage in large-scale dialogue with the public starting from its basic foundation, fulfilling the needs of voters. In regards to DPP governing counties, the leadership must emphasize quality governance. In order to enhance the partys local image, DPP leaders must play the role in emphasizing Green Governance by promoting the advantages of its policies. 2. Confronting the China Factor in Elections In confronting the economic threats created by China, the DPP must develop a cross strait strategy that is capable of gathering domestic consen sus. The DPP must issue a policy that can convince the people not to rely on economic interference, but at the same time, it must ensure the safety net of economic livelihood. Additionally, the DPP must remove the stereotype of being a party that is protectionist and anti-China. The China Factor indeed played a powerful force into these past elections. However, the former issues of national identification and unification and independence were transformed into economic topics. The main challenge for the DPP lies in confronting Chinas interference into the election by facing that Chinas strategy has already been changed, and that Chinese involvement has not only turned to be meticulous, but its influence has also become comprehensive. Especially, China has used the factor of Taiwans economic reliance on China to turn cross strait political issues into economic topics, although this has not caused a direct effect into the high degree of national identification by the Taiwanese public. In future elections, the China factor is bound to be sustained and enhanced. In this regard, the Taiwanese public will continue to have doubts, but they will still feel there is a lack of specific options. For this reason, the DPP must continue to persist on its standpoints and play the role of consolidating Taiwans sovereignty and economic independence. Furthermore, the DPP strategy must be careful, moderate and flexible in order to provide policy options that do not fall into dependence on Chinas economy and that provides more reassuring choices for economic livelihood. On the other hand, while emphasizing a moderate and flexible approach to cross strait policy, the DPP must not rule out contacts with China. However, in practice, the DPP must engage in specific actions to strengthen this position and to narrow the gap between the publics view of image and policy standpoints towards the DPP. In the future, the DPP must conduct deeper research regarding PAGE 6

FEBRUARY 2012

the changes of Chinas strategies towards Taiwan, and it must engage in exchanges to remove the anti-China and isolationists stereotypes. 3. Dissolving Election Scrutiny Facing the problem of election scrutiny, the DPP must come up with a positive breakthrough that lays out the political foundation at the grassroots level. This must be implemented by deeply enhancing representation in areas disadvantageous to the DPP. The DPP must implement the strategy of upward integration starting from the local base to the central headquarters. From observing the results of the last elections, the crucial challenge for the DPP lies on transforming the disadvantage of the DPP in the northern areas, currently experiencing large population growth. The DPP has only presence in areas that are facing outward mobilization. Therefore, the DPP must lay out a strategy to increase support in growing areas in order to decrease its disparity with the KMT. Since the change of single district representation in the legislature, there has been an increase of areas with less DPP representation, and this has posed to be the greatest challenge for the party. Without adequate official representation, the party has found greater difficulties to service the public, thus creating a vicious cycle that must be resolved. In order to lessen the DPPs disadvantages, the party must enhance services through the constituency of legislators and assign disadvantaged districts to at-large legislators. In order to strengthen party organization, the DPP must extensively setup service branches in towns and municipalities and consolidate its public and party officials to better provide services to the public. In order to prepare for the 2014 Seven-in-One Elections, the party must develop comprehensive countermeasures as soon as possible by carryingout the endorsement process earlier so that candidates can establish their presence in localities and create an upward integration starting from the lo-

cal base towards the central headquarters. The training of personnel at all levels is essential, such as running a campaign and strengthening the links with various associations. Furthermore, the party headquarters must strengthen its election research capabilities in order to produce more professional and objective experts. Despite the fact that the DPP enlarged its presence during the last election to combat election scrutiny, the results showed that it lacked effectiveness. In the future, the party must establish an even more rigorous system and train greater personnel to monitor election scrutiny.

PAGE 7

FEBRUARY 2012

Dalai Lama sends letter to Chair Tsai Ing-wen, congratulates DPP for strengthening Taiwans democratization
to show concern for the universal value of human rights. The DPP expresses great admiration to His Holiness, and expresses its gratitude for his long-term concern for Taiwans democracy, especially during his recent visit to care for the Taiwanese people in the natural disaster crisis. 2. The DPP has long held onto the belief of respect for human rights and democracy, and whether in power or in opposition, we must defend these values. Especially, we request that these values are included when interacting with China. 3. As the largest opposition party in Taiwan, we urge the Ma Administration to refrain from remaining silent regarding Chinas democracy and human rights. We further urge for the Ma Administration to speak DEMOCRACY & courageously and PROGRESS condemn Chinas crackdown on Tibet as well as PUBLISHED BY: show active concern to the human Department of International rights issue of Tibet and the demo- Aairs Democratic Progressive Party cratic development of China.
9F, No. 30, Pei-Ping East Road, Taipei, Taiwan Tel: 886-2-2392-9989 ext. 306 Fax: 886-2-2393-0342 Email: foreign@dpp.org.tw Website: http://www.dpp.org.tw

On February 22nd, Chair Tsai Ing-wen welcomed a visit by the Chairman of the Tibet Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Mr. Dawa Tsering. During the visit, Mr. Dawa Tsering brought a letter sent by the Dalai Lama dated January 16, where he expressed admiration for Chair Tsais robust participation in the recently-held elections. The Dalai Lama, in his letter, expressed that while winning and losing is part of the democratic process he commended Chair Tsai for becoming an inspiration to many people as a democratic model. The Dalai Lama further wrote in his letter that he wished to applaud Chair Tsai and the partys role in strengthening the democratization of Taiwan and the grace with which you acknowledged the electoral result. During the visit, Chair Tsai expressed concern for the recent violence in Tibet that has led to many cases of self-immolation. Showing the DPPs support for the people of Tibet, the DPP has issued the following statement: 1. Even though His Holiness the Dalai Lama is no longer playing a role in politics, with his identity as a religious leader, he has continued

PAGE 8