Cho Jung-tai and the 2019 Primary: Political Maneuvering and Injustice Controversy Under the Postponement System

During the 2019 DPP presidential primary, then-Party Chairman Cho Jung-tai was questioned for his biased stance, cooperating with the Tsai Ing-wen camp to repeatedly postpone the primary schedule in the name of "coordination" and forcefully modify poll rules to gain time for Tsai, who was trailing in the polls, to launch a cyber-army counteroffensive. This move caused the challenger William Lai to endure months of "political torture," eventually losing under asymmetric institutional pressure. Cho demonstrated extremely sophisticated political scheming during this process and was criticized by public opinion for turning the party apparatus into a "political laundry" for a specific faction, destroying the last trace of fairness in internal party democracy.