US embassy cable - 05TAIPEI4850

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TAIPEI 004850 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE PASS AIT/W 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/12/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, TW, Domestic Politics 
SUBJECT:  FROM COALITION TO PARTY: IN ELECTION AFTERMATH, 
KMT AND PFP MULL UNIFICATION 
 
Classified By: AIT Director Douglas H. Paal, Reason(s): 
1.4 (B/D) 
 
1.  (C) Summary. As KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou and PFP 
chairman James Soong meet to discuss party merger the evening 
of December 12, the death of the PFP seems inevitable, the 
only question is when.  The People First Party (PFP) lost the 
December 3 local elections with a humiliating one percent of 
the vote and is increasingly viewed as a deteriorating, 
though highly obstructive, force in Taiwan politics.  Merger 
could, for example, eliminate the single biggest obstacle to 
progress on LY approval of a budget for defense 
modernization.  It would also be a feather in the cap of KMT 
chairman Ma, still basking in the glow of the KMT victory 
December 3.  The biggest single obstacle to merger will 
likely be the fragile pride of James Soong, who has suggested 
he will demand KMT support to run for Taipei Mayor in return 
for agreeing to merge.  Ma has no reason to accept that 
bargain, and he can afford to watch as the PFP deteriorates 
further.  End Summary. 
 
 
Slouching Fitfully Toward Merger 
-------------------------------- 
 
2.  (C) The two Pan-Blue coalition parties, KMT and PFP, 
which split in 2000, have been debating unification for the 
past year and a half (Note: the third coalition partner, New 
Party, effectively merged with the KMT in early 2005.  End 
Note).  Opinion survey after opinion survey over the past two 
years have shown Pan-Blue supporters strongly support the 
three Pan-Blue parties merging into one.  All earlier efforts 
to merge, however, foundered on the shoals of leadership 
pride and personal animosities.  The PFP's December 3 
electoral humiliation appears to have given one more impetus 
to overcome the fragile pride of the PFP and James Soong. 
 
3.  (C) In the run up to the December 2004 legislative 
elections, the brother-sister legislative team of Lee 
Ching-hua and Lee Ching-an publicly called for immediate 
merger of PFP and KMT, but Chairman Soong and his close 
advisors dismissed the idea, pledging to pursue merger after 
the elections.  Lee Ching-an later told AIT that this was a 
delaying tactic by Soong and company in hopes of scoring 
upset victories in the legislative elections.  By the time 
PFP victories failed to pan out on election day, she said, 
the bitterness that had accumulated during the campaign made 
any movement toward merger impossible.  Soong's meeting with 
President Chen Shui-bian in February 2005 further soured 
PFP-KMT relations.  The KMT, in turn, moved to undercut 
Soong's bid to make himself a key cross-Strait middleman with 
his early May visit to Mainland China, PFP legislator 
Christina Liu recently reminded AIT, by quickly arranging an 
earlier trip by then-KMT Chairman Lien Chan.  This was a blow 
from which neither Soong nor his party, which placed last in 
the National Assembly election two days after Soong returned 
from Beijing, ever fully recovered.  Soong's final gambit, 
former DPP legislator and just-announced Taipei Mayoral 
candidate Shen Fu-hsiong told AIT, was the December 3 local 
elections, in which Soong campaigned "desperately" for PFP 
candidates in Keelung and Hualien.  PFP's empty-handed finish 
with an embarrassing vote total of 1.1 percent was the final 
blow, which started the internal PFP movement to rejoin the 
KMT.  (Note: PFP's actual vote percentages in Keelung and 
Hualien were a respectable 26 and 25 percent, and PFP 
actually won the Lienchang County (Matsu) Magistrate race 
unopposed by any party candidates. End Note.) 
 
4.  (C) PFP legislator Vincent Chang (Hsien-yao), who met 
with KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou on December 8 along with four 
other PFP legislators, told AIT that he and his four PFP 
colleagues made good progress in sorting out the "extremely 
complex" process of merging.  They and Ma, Chang said, 
focused on some of the less sensitive merger issues, such as 
party personnel and related issues.  They parted agreeing 
that merger could take as long as two years.  Further 
negotiations between the PFP group of five legislators and 
KMT Secretary-General Chan Chun-po, Chang noted, would 
continue over the ensuing three days in preparation for the 
announced Monday evening, December 12, meeting between Ma and 
Soong at KMT headquarters. 
 
Soong's Ambitions 
----------------- 
 
5.  (C) The fly in the merger ointment, however, is the 
apparent determination of PFP Chairman James Soong to run for 
Taipei Mayor in December 2006.  Chang told AIT that Soong is 
"strongly leaning" towards declaring his candidacy. 
According to other PFP contacts, Soong has become convinced 
that the only course now open for the PFP to remain a vital 
force in Taiwan politics is for him to run in December 2006 
to replace Ma Ying-jeou as Mayor of Taipei.  PFP hardliners, 
they explain, support and encourage this decision as the only 
way to keep the party alive for the foreseeable future. 
Vincent Chang and KMT Policy Deputy Director Chang Jung-kung 
separately told AIT that Ma's endorsement of Soong is -- or 
will be, when the discussions reach that point -- a tacit 
(moqide) condition for merger.  This, however, according to a 
whole range of KMT and other political operatives, is a 
non-starter, as it would position Soong to directly challenge 
Ma for the KMT presidential nomination.  Ma and many KMT 
leaders, moreover, are deeply bitter toward Soong for his 
attack on the KMT's history of corruption on the eve of the 
December 3 elections. 
 
6.  (C) Chairman Ma, in fact, told the five-member PFP 
delegation, according to Vincent Chang, that James Soong 
would have to follow party election rules and go through the 
regular primary nomination process for Taipei Mayor.  Ma 
subsequently responded to a media query by stating that James 
Soong as a KMT member would have to follow the KMT electoral 
rules and enter primaries.  This, DPP Taipei mayoral hopeful 
Shen Fu-hsiung told AIT, will virtually assure Soong never 
becomes the KMT nominee, as his popularity has fallen 
significantly since his near-victory in the 2000 presidential 
race.  Shen acknowledged that he personally very much wants 
Soong as his opponent next year, either running on the KMT 
ticket or, preferably, on the PFP ticket, thus splitting the 
Pan-Blue vote.  KMT insiders close to the Ma Ying-jeou camp, 
tell AIT that Ma has not announced who he will support to 
succeed himself as Mayor, but note that it will probably be 
either former Taipei Vice Mayor Ou Chin-te, former Taipei 
environmental director Hau Long-bin, KMT legislator Wu 
Tun-yi, or maybe LY member John Chiang, and not, under any 
circumstances, James Soong. 
 
Comment:  PFP Fading Fast 
------------------------- 
 
7.  (C) Over the past year, there has been a growing sense of 
frustration among PFP legislators who sense that the days of 
their party are numbered.  This sense of inevitability grew 
after the June 2005 constitutional reforms that created a 
one-district-one-representative legislative system to replace 
the old multi-member legislative districts.  While many PFP 
members have their own bitter memories of their break with 
the KMT in 2000, most have overcome that through 
intra-coalitional cooperation within the Pan-Blue over the 
intervening years.  Ma's insistence that Soong must, like 
everyone else, go through the KMT primary nomination process 
will put a damper on Soong's willingness to return his party 
to the mother KMT, but growing restiveness among PFP 
legislators, two of whom (Lin Yu-fang and Lee Ching-an) have 
announced their imminent departure from the party, will raise 
the pressure on Soong.  With the PFP's humiliating showing in 
the May 14 National Assembly election and the December 3 
local elections, Soong and his PFP hardliners are not in a 
strong position either to lay down conditions for merger or 
resist internal PFP pressures for merger.  If merger does go 
through, Chairman Ma's position will be further strengthened 
on the back of his election victory on December 3.  If the 
PFP stalls, Soong gains nothing and Ma loses little. 
PAAL