This July 21, 2019, photo taken from the Xiangshan Mountain shows the Taipei 101 skyscraper in Taipei, southeast China's Taiwan. (ZHU XIANG / XINHUA)

Lai Ching-te is expected to become the new head of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) on Jan 15. He seems to meet the expectations of the “green camp” in Taiwan. After all, according to the polls, Lai is the only DPP politician who can challenge Hou Yu-ih in the island’s 2024 “general election”. Lai is also the only choice of the DPP. In last year’s local election, the DPP suffered the most serious defeat in the 36 years since it was founded, having been hit by scandals such as academic corruption, “black gold politics” (political corruption) and the Hsinchu Stadium case. Tsai Ing-wen, Su Tseng-chang, Cheng Wen-tsan, Lin Chih-chien, Huang Wei-che — nearly all key “green camp” politicians — were implicated in those scandals, and public support for the DPP has dropped sharply. Only Lai, who had been deliberately shelved by Tsai, remains unscathed. 

With the reputation of the DPP having hit rock bottom, Lai, who has tested positive for COVID-19, managed to come out for the DPP leadership election. No one would have accused him of being opportunistic, but would rather consider him a “brave guy” who has come to the party’s rescue. Therefore, nearly all factions in the “green camp” have expressed their support for Lai; and even Tsai, who had purportedly suppressed Lai for a long time, called him “the most suitable successor”.

But the tougher issues will come after the DPP leadership election.

If Lai wants to win out in the island’s 2024 “general election”, he must tackle three major problems after securing the DPP chairmanship.

First is the proposed reform of the party. Starting as an opposition party, the DPP has built itself up by leveraging street movements, and eventually seized power on the island. With social justice advocacy being listed as one of its platforms in the party constitution, the DPP has been merciless in attacking the KMT Party whenever the latter was implicated in a scandal. But after taking power, members of the DPP became corrupt, having been plagued by scandals such as the MVC vaccine and the bribery case of the speaker of the Tainan municipal legislature. The mystery surrounding the Tainan shooting incident, which shocked the whole island, is still unresolved. 

Negative incidents continue to plague the DPP. Lai, who is determined to pull the party out of the quagmire, is expected to come up with a detailed plan for reforming the party after Lunar New Year. When Lai was the mayor of Tainan eight years ago, Tainan municipal legislature speaker Li Quanjiao, a KMT politician, got elected by bribery. In his move to protest against “black gold politics”, Lai refused to enter the local legislature for 234 days at the cost of impeachment. Although such behavior is in violation of democratic principles, his attitude of firmly defending justice should be appreciated.

However, a recent online poll shows that 95 percent of Taiwan residents have no confidence that Lai will vigorously fight “black gold politics” within the DPP. The DPP now is different from the past, with more complicated factions and vested interests. Whether Lai still has the same sense of justice, and dares to jump into this quagmire to give the DPP a bright new look, is a big question for many people.

Second, Lai must secure strong support within the party. At present, Lai has gained the support of many party bigwigs, and is at the height of his popularity, but the road to the throne is bound to be tortuous. After registering to run for the party chairmanship, Lai is now eager to hold more than 20 political meetings across Taiwan. These are intended to help find those who were responsible for the DPP’s recent election debacle, and to demonstrate Lai’s strong ambition for the 2024 island-wide election. 

Tsai, who has resigned from her position as the DPP party chairperson, immediately announced a “post-election review” after Lai floated the idea of launching a review of the DPP’s recent election defeat and reforming the party. After Lai takes over at the helm of the DPP, he will have to get along with Tsai when he handles party affairs and government affairs. 

On the surface, Tsai says she will not interfere in party affairs, but it is unlikely that she will loosen her grip on the DPP. It was also reported that after Su Tseng-chang resigned, Chen Chien-jen and Cheng Wen-tsan will take charge of the “Executive Yuan” (the executive branch). Both are deeply trusted by Tsai, and there were also rumors that they were being groomed as Tsai’s successors many years ago. So, if Tsai does not want Lai to run for the leadership of the island, Chen Chien-jen and Cheng Wen-tsan could be promoted as candidates for the island’s top post and its second-highest post, respectively. Should the “blue camp” fail to nominate Hou Yu-ih, the strongest candidate within the camp, for the 2024 election, the competition for candidacy among the factions within the DPP would be fierce for sure.

Third, Lai’s narrative on cross-Straits relations. For any candidate who wants to win the island’s “general election”, he/she must handle cross-Straits relations properly. After the series of events which occurred in the Taiwan Straits last year, Taiwan residents have realized that it is very dangerous to blindly oppose the mainland. About 70 percent of voters want to maintain the status quo. 

In August 2022, Global Views Monthly in Taiwan conducted a poll of world leaders and found that the leader most admired by Taiwan residents was Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (30.5 percent), and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ranked second (21.5 percent). This is very interesting. Lee is a very sophisticated politician who is good at keeping amicable relationships with major powers, and Zelensky is a representative of the hardliners. The poll shows that public opinion is increasingly divided between the moderates and the hardliners on the island, and the moderates are the mainstream. As a “pragmatic advocate of Taiwan independence”, Lai is seen as more like Zelensky on the political spectrum. 

As great changes are taking place in the world, the era of chaos shall pass. If Lai does want to be the strongest candidate in the DPP, as the “Taiwan Independence Party Program” and “Resolution on Taiwan’s Future” are becoming outdated, how to come up with a new ideology to win over the moderates is a greater challenge for the “golden son of Taiwan independence”, compared with other potential candidates.

The author is an academic at the Academy of Overseas Chinese, Jinan University. 

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.