Care needed in using public law for private elections

In Taiwan, such gray areas bordering the public and private domains take on another dimension.

Ma Ying-jeou's double capacity as leader of both the country and the ruling Kuomintang may facilitate the running of the government. But the two roles could also interfere with each other.

The KMT power core — the Central Standing Committee (CSC) — is already a mix of the public and private, running both the country and the party.

Now the wrath of the KMT chairman over vote-buying in internal party elections is influencing the president, who is looking to have government officials come up with solutions to solve his problems “at home.”

Ma has always been unhappy with “bribery” accompanying KMT's internal elections. Such bribery often takes the form of gifts — which are not necessarily expensive ones, but rather a goodwill gesture.

The last time he was chairman four years ago, he often made it clear that no bribery should be tolerated in internal elections.

But at the time he had yet to establish his authority, and his aspiration for the presidency still needed strong support from fellow KMT members. His words apparently fell on deaf ears.

Earlier this month, Ma, as president of the country, took the helm of the KMT again.

This time he turned his anger at bribery into swift action by axing two freshly elected members to the CSC for sending gifts to voters.

The incident then snowballed into a campaign — with full blessing from the chairman — that saw all CSC members resign to show support of reform to the party, and their pledge of loyalty to the party chief.

The KMT is now preparing for a new election for the decision-making party and about a dozen party members have been banned from entering the race for having “bribed” voters in the last poll.

That is not the end of the story. Ma is looking to make sure there will not be a repeat.

As a lawyer who has shown strong faith in the rule of law, he apparently believes the law will be the solution.

He is seeking to criminalize “bribery” in political parties' internal elections.

An election law is already in place that punishes vote-buyers in party primaries for public elections. But there are no laws banning bribery in elections for internal party posts.

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