Sexual Harassment Cases One After Another, DPP Faces Trust Crisis
United Daily News Editorial, June 4, 2023
The collapse of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the local elections last year began with the controversy of thesis plagiarism of former Hsinchu Mayor Lin Chih-chien. For the 2024 presidential election, the DPP did not expect a storm of “#MeToo” to happen inside the party, turning its women’s affairs and youth departments into centers of power bullying. Many women party workers had had the idea of making waves for the party, but instead became the victims stuck in ruthless nightmares. Although DPP Chairman William Lai apologized several times to stop the bleeding, the storm is growing stronger and stronger.
Separate exposures of sexual harassment may be called individual cases, but a series of accusations mean these involved cover-ups of cases and bullying in the DPP’s women’s affairs, youth, and organization departments. The cases are also related to party officials as high as their deputy secretary-general. The scope and duration of the cases indicate that sexual harassment and bullying have become a norm in the DPP, and cover-ups by high party officials have become the DPP’s hidden DNA. For the DPP, to win elections, any value can be compromised, this is why the stories of power bullying are recurring and those wave makers who devoted themselves to DPP were drowned by the realistic waves.
Both President Tsai Ing-wen and Chairman William Lai have strongly recommended the Netflix drama “Wave Makers.” To imitate the picture of the “Justice Party” in the drama, Chairman Lai pretended that the DPP, like the “Justice Party,” could implement the ideas of the young people. The script of the drama implies the “old stories” of the DPP, but the DPP’s merciless power bullying is more horrendous than that in the script, and the DPP lacks party officials like those in the drama who are committed to values and cannot let the wrongdoings go. After the controversy was exposed for several days, President Tsai finally wrote on social media that as a former party chairperson, she should have full responsibility. The shameful scandals occurred almost around Tsai’s time as chairwoman, but she either did not hear them or chose to ignore them. This shows how the DPP’s morals have crumbled.
The task of the DPP’s Women’s Affairs Department is to protect the rights of women, but its officials have become the executioners who covered up the sexual harassment cases. They protected a film director who had a close relationship with then-Chairwoman Tsai, and through political contributions and project biddings, he and the DPP lived in symbiosis with the DPP, so small potatoes were not able to confront him. The accused officials of the DPP organization and youth departments are those “capable persons” who are favored by the DPP and need to be protected to extend the DPP’s political power. The resulting horrible work situation is naturally the responsibility of the party chairperson and secretary-general. Now the DPP sacks the person after the scandal is exposed. This is merely a political move to cope with the scandals and lacks the sincerity to reform the twisted structure. Just as Chairwoman Tsai had asked the whole DPP to fully support former Mayor Lin in the thesis plagiarism case last year, she only considered power, not distinguishing right from wrong, and insisted on protecting the wrongdoers to the end. How can this party help young people carry out ideas and realize justice?
Then DPP Deputy Secretary-General Lin Fei-fan also protected the wrongdoer. He remained in total silence after hearing the report on sexual harassment. As a leader of the “Sunflower Movement,” Mr. Lin became an accomplice after entering the party structure. While he was a relatively new member, he was chosen as the candidate to run for legislator in an important constituency, which led to many of the DPP’s old “revolutionary partners’” disapproval. According to Mr. Lin, he was negligent in dealing with the sexual harassment case, but he cannot explain away how many cases of negligence will become unexploded bombs in the upcoming election. It is unrealistic for the DPP to attempt to use Mr. Lin to trick young people into casting their votes for the DPP.
The DPP can protect high-level officials but can also ruthlessly sacrifice comrades. In the design of the so-called “democratic alliance,” the DPP strongly supports Mr. Lee Cheng-hao, who was forsaken by the Kuomintang (KMT) and was involved in gender equality controversies. The DPP ignored its young party members, causing nearly 800 pro-DPP grassroots supporters to sign protests, criticizing that the party does not select persons who do not violate party values or who do not damage party images. The current “#MeToo” controversy reinforces DPP’s disregard for basic values in the integrity of the candidates. This also shows that Chairman Lai’s rhetoric of anti-corruption reforms is just empty talks.
The opposition voice inside the DPP is stronger than that from the outside. Chairman Lai’s potential votes from the young people will be far fewer than before. This will hurt Chairmen Lai’s popularity rate in opinion polls and the whole society will cast doubt on the DPP. If Chairman Lai resorts to shouting hollow slogans of democracy but fails to address the DPP’s nature that “absolute power corrupts absolutely,” his attempt to advocate “Entrust Taiwan to Lai” to trick the voters would slight voters’ intelligence and judgment. Mr. Lai is facing the most difficult trial as the DPP’s chairman, and this is DPP’s inescapable trust crisis.