Analysis: TPP Likely To Stay Pan-Blue Under Huang Kuo-chang's Leadership

TaiwanPlus News

Following the election of Huang Kuo-chang as the new chair of the Taiwan People's Party, political analyst Courtney Donovan Smith explains why the party is unlikely to move back to a centrist position but will retain its core support base.

Transcript

00:00To start with, Huang Guocheng is now the chairperson of the TPP until 2026.

00:05What does this mean for the party?

00:08That's an interesting question.

00:09Now he has described on Facebook, after he won the chair race, he said that he wanted

00:15to make it a progressive Taiwan-centric party.

00:19However, that isn't exactly how they've been voting.

00:22They've been voting in lockstep with the KMT.

00:27And what's interesting is that right now, their voting record makes them as much pan-blue

00:32as when the term was created in the year 2000, when you had the People's First Party and

00:38the New Party allied with the KMT, and they voted as a bloc.

00:42So right now, for all intents and purposes, the TPP is essentially a pan-blue party.

00:49Now, will that change?

00:52Probably not, because Huang Guocheng has been the caucus convener for the party since

00:59February 1st.

01:00So is there any chance that the TPP can be a centrist party at all, or are they solidly

01:07in the pan-blue camp now?

01:08Well, I mean, obviously things can change, but so far, Huang Guocheng has not shown any

01:17interest in moving in that direction, other than that Facebook post.

01:21Now, it's worth noting that he has actually more power than Cohen did in many ways, because

01:28he's both the party's caucus convener and the party chair.

01:33Now, the candidate for chair who might have been more centrist, Cai Biru, who also in

01:40polling appears to have been more popular with the general public, she only got 3 point

01:46something percent of the vote from party members.

01:48So the hardcore party members are solidly in the camp of Huang Guocheng, and Cai Biru

01:55lost in a landslide.

01:59So where the general public is more aligned with Cai Biru is not where the party membership

02:06is.

02:07What should Huang Guocheng then strategically aim for in moving the TPP forward?

02:13Strategically, I think the TPP has two paths they could follow.

02:18One is continue on the path that they're on, and they have lost over 10,000 members, it's

02:26worth noting.

02:28And they used to have 32,500 or so, and now they have a little over 19,000.

02:36So they have lost a lot of support.

02:39On the other hand, the support that they do have right now is very loyal and very solid.

02:46Now, in opinion polling, they've lost maybe 7, 8, 10 percent, depending on the poll, from

02:53the general public, but they still have far and away enough support to continue to maintain

03:01a presence in the legislature with their current support base.

03:06Or they could try to move toward the center, and go back to their original ideology of

03:11being a party between the Pan-Blue and the Pan-Green.

03:15They could try and go back to that and their original ideology of being scientific, pragmatic,

03:20getting things done, do the right thing, that kind of thing that Ke Wenzhe originally championed.

03:27But as far as I can tell, the party membership and Huang Guocheng does not have any appetite

03:32for that at all.

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