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| Screenshot: credit to one of the links below - you get to figure out which one! |
With the recall vote of bleach sniffer and guy who is mayor of Kaohsiung for some reason, Han Kuo-yu, allegations have surfaced on both sides of partisan attempts to sway the outcome.
On one hand, the DPP is rumored to be scheduling more trains to Kaohsiung so residents who work in other cities can return to vote:
Han says the government is conspiring to kick him out, alleging that more trains have been scheduled for Saturday so people can go vote. The DPP-led government says that is untrue.
On the other hand, the KMT is alleged to be colluding with gangsters who plan to intimidate people into not voting:
Separately yesterday, Chen told Kaohsiung police officials that he had received reports that gangsters, allegedly in collaboration with Han supporters, plan to intimidate voters at polling stations.
“I have ordered Kaohsiung police to work with public prosecutors and investigate,” Chen said after the meeting.
Han has asked his supporters not to vote, in an attempt to keep numbers of overall voters below the percentage needed to recall him.
Hooooooookay. So.
Let's assume both rumors are true. They probably aren't - though gangsters are more likely to be involved than trains - but let's pretend they are.
Even if that's true, how in the everloving sh*----- excuse me. Ahem. How on this gorgeous green Earth would that make the DPP the bad guy? Or even equivalent to the KMT in tactics?
More trains means more voters. More voters is good for democracy. It's never bad - ever - to have more of the electorate voting. Even if you don't like who wins. You should always want more people to vote.
If a politician doesn't, and surviving a recall vote (or getting elected) depends entirely on a low turnout, then the problem isn't the voters, it's the politician.
On that alone, Han's allegation is stupid, because if it were true, that wouldn't be bad.
The only thing I can say to make the opposite case is that perhaps people who don't reside in Kaohsiung aren't the best people to vote on Kaohsiung's future. But that problem needs to be solved by changing the way Taiwan records residency and who is eligible to vote where.
So we've got the DPP allegedly trying to help people vote, and the KMT apparently trying to stop people from voting.
To be honest, I'm tepid at best on recall votes. Han was elected. I hate his guts but he was elected. I don't want him in office, but letting him continue to say dumb things in public might actually be a good thing. Perhaps this once rising-star has cratered so hard that it doesn't matter, but it still makes the KMT look like a gaggle of idiots and that's great.
It would also be expensive and tedious to have a new election with 2022 not that far away. That said, if I were a Kaohsiung voter, I'd vote to recall him. I'm just not super invested in the outcome of this is all.
Regardless, here's what matters: you may not like the side that wants people to vote freely, but the side that is trying to encourage you not to exercise your democratic rights is always wrong. Always.
Funny how that side always seems to be - allegedly - the KMT.
Hmmmmm.
I think people's problems with the trains is that the discounts were only for college students. Given that Han's support among the youth tends to be lower... well, you can figure why this move looks pretty bad.
ReplyDeleteI never saw a report of discounts for college students, just "more trains", which would frankly be a good thing.
ReplyDeleteCollege kids also tend to be broke - I don't think it is necessarily 'bad' to make it easier for them, or anyone, to exercise their democratic rights. I don't think it's such a bad idea for Taiwan Railway to make it easier to vote, not harder. Perhaps it could be balanced out with a senior concession, though Taiwan already has those. I don't know if there's a student concession for trains generally.
Yes, I agree that college kids tend to be poorer than the rest of the adult population. But Taiwan Railway didn't say anything about making it easier to vote, they said the goal was to "promote tourism/spur economic activity". That's why the excuse seemed so flimsy, because if that were the real reason, there's no reason to limit it to college students.
ReplyDeletehttp://m.thsrc.com.tw/tw/News/Detail/2a88bef6-d3d2-4143-9611-4f11ed4735ab/2
ReplyDeleteHere's a link to the original (Chinese language) announcement. "限時推出「大學生雙週快閃優惠」活動。" And it just so happens to coincide with the recall vote.
If the rationale was to make it easier to vote, then fair enough. The dates make sense. But only making it easier for people on "your side" (college students) is blatant manipulation, and I'd call it out if it were the KMT doing the same thing. If you're going to make it easier to vote in the name of democracy, then this discount should apply to people of *all* ages, not just college students.
The only potential excuse in my mind is that HSR did this without any pressure from the DPP. And I say that as someone who is by no means a Blue voter.
While it's true that college students overwhelmingly dislike the KMT and Han, they are not *necessarily* only on the side of the DPP. And college students also tend to be more broke than everyone else.
ReplyDeleteI also think it's very possible that the HSR just wants more revenue and figures that college students can't afford to take it most of the time (which is honestly true. I balk at the cost of an HSR to southern Taiwan and I'm comfortably middle class and well out of college. I'll still pay it, because I can afford it, but I notice that it's pricey.)
Also, pre-emptively pointing fingers at the DPP over rumors they are involved in transport companies offering discounts to demographics known to be kind of broke - while being silent on (frankly more credible, though I admit unproven) rumors that the KMT is conspiring with gangs to stop people from voting...why? It feels like an echo of 2008 when everyone was hating on the DPP because of Chen family money laundering, while electing the KMT, a party that has been stealing Taiwan's wealth and resources for generations and didn't even try to hide it. It's just so weird, the double standard. Not even double - the KMT is *clearly* worse.
ReplyDeleteOh, I have no doubts that the KMT conspired with gangsters and screwed with democratic institutions to get its way, and that it has exploited its dominant position. There's a reason why it's one of the richest political parties in the world.
ReplyDeleteThat's *why* it's so troubling if the DPP is behaving in similar fashion. Can't we get out of this cycle of corruption and influence peddling? I'm not talking about the KMT in this piece of news, because the KMT wasn't involved, whereas it's *more* likely the DPP was. I don't have a dog in the fight either way. If the DPP is doing something wrong, we should point it out, and not try to defend it just because the KMT is worse.
(that doesn't mean I wouldn't still vote for the DPP. Just because Biden is a flawed candidate doesn't mean I would vote for Trump, for example)
To be clear, I don't think we'll easily find any "smoking gun" with President Tsai directing the HSR to lower prices for college students on these specific dates for the express purpose of increasing the chances that Han is recalled. Plausible deniability is a thing, but I have to say it at the very least *looks* damn bad, and shouldn't have been a thing in the first place. Just give the discounts to everyone (lord knows everyone's pocketbook has been hurting during this pandemic, not just college students) and criticism looks a lot weaker.
But this post referenced both things, not just the allegations against the DPP.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I think it's far less likely that the DPP is involved in this than the KMT does...anything bad. If anything, it might be better for them that Han be allowed to serve out the final 2 years of his term. More time for him to look like an idiot and make the KMT look bad, as I wrote. And I think it's unlikely they haven't come to the same conclusion.
It's just as likely, if not more so, that the HSR has correctly figured out that college students in particular avoid it due to high prices. Or (slightly less likely but more likely than a DPP conspiracy) that some green-leaning HSR senior manager chose of their own volition to do this.
Even so, I'm still not as bothered by anything that gets more people voting than fewer.
True, and I apologize for not referencing the part where you referred to the KMT. The scope of my comment was intended only as a response to the HSR incident; I don't really have much to add regarding your commentary on the KMT.
ReplyDeleteI agree that in principal, "anything that gets more people voting than fewer" is good. But I'm sure how you can see this can be problematic depending on how it's used (or abused). Let's say I provide shuttle rides to polling booths specifically for white people in poor communities, while not making the same rides available for black people. Yes, this action "got more people voting than fewer", but you can clearly see how this would be a problem, and how it wouldn't be a problem if the rides were made available to both black and white communities. As such, that's why people have a problem with these HSR discounts - it's just too conveniently helpful, coinciding with the recall.
To be clear, I don't think it will really have an effect on the recall either way. But it's just that *if* the DPP has found itself slowly adopting some of the KMT's dirty tricks (abusing governmental power), that's a bad sign for Taiwanese democracy overall.
Well, yes, generally speaking I believe in equal access for all. Just as I didn't *like* the corruption that used to clearly plague the DPP (and surely still does in some unswept corners) but held the KMT to greater account due to their greater corruption, I don't *like* the idea of the DPP playing dirty.
ReplyDeleteI just...don't think this is particularly dirty, even if true. The thing about the 'rides to polling stations' analogy is that providing rides in majority White districts but not majority Black ones gives the already-privileged an extra boost while not helping the marginalized/disenfranchised. Whereas college students, more than other groups, are if anything more disenfranchised as they are more likely to both be broke and not live near their registered voting place.
That said, remember that college usually starts at age 18, but voting doesn't start until age 20. So "cheaper rides for college students" doesn't map out perfectly onto voters at all, let alone anti-Han voters. So I just don't see that the evidence is clear enough to point fingers at the DPP. And as far as I'm aware the discounts aren't just to Kaohsiung, yes?
But do consider perhaps looking at it this way. I wouldn't feel the same about providing extra assistance to disenfranchised voters as to ones from privileged communities, so "free rides to polling stations" may not be a bad thing depending on who those rides are for. All in all we should strive for egalitarianism, but speaking very abstractly, there are situations where it is theoretically justified to offer extra assistance to marginalized communities that is not offered to dominant ones. Even if that helps one party more than another (which, honestly, it usually will - but the party that marginalized communities vote for is probably the better choice anyway.)
ReplyDeleteBut, we can agree that that assistance shouldn't come from a specific party. But if a specific party has more power in the government, those lines do get blurred. They shouldn't, but they inevitably do.