Politics

Strong parties must cultivate and train generations of political leaders

This points to need for strong organization empowered leadership and comprehensive policy-development processes

Neither KMT nor TPP approach this archetype

Party Internationals can facilitate exchange with ideologically like-minded parties and NGOs

Party-affiliated and independent foundations can provide similar support as well as broadening society-to-society contacts

Democracy is also intimately linked to Taiwanese sense of national identity one of strongest predictors of whether country can survive conquest attempt

KMT and TPP legislators passed controversial reforms to seize powers from executive and judiciary

Voters' beliefs that everyone won 2024 election gave way to realization that Taiwan has few institutional means to resolve competing executive and legislative prerogatives within divided government

KMT and TPP parties attempted to shift budgetary control to local-level governments where they hold majority of leadership positions

Parties were effectively stuck with each other until next national elections in 2028

Ongoing gridlock threatened government functions even as Taiwan needs to demonstrate resolve to Beijing and Washington

Taiwan's opposition parties played constitutional hardball for past year and a half

Taiwan's constitutional court struck down most measures

Legislature voted down new appointees to court and raised quorum of justices preventing it from legally operating

Budget battle slashed funding along partisan lines setting DPP government up for failure

Taiwan's civil society tried to force resolution through widespread recall efforts which failed on Saturday

Campaign revealed two potential threats to Taiwan's democracy

If recalls become normalized electoral losers will wait a year and launch campaign

Elected officials would have only that year to govern while opponents have incentive to obstruct government's agenda

Each candidate would have to win two elections with second recall having higher bar than first