Today we have a major leak from the Legislative Yuan! It turns out that the New Power Party (NPP), particularly its former leader Huang Kuo-chang, has been playing a classic game of two-faced politics.
Publicly, Huang and other NPP members have been loud and clear in their opposition to the DPP government’s multi-billion dollar Forward-Looking Infrastructure Development Program, calling it a wasteful project and criticizing the lack of transparency. Their social media posts are full of “heroic” opposition rhetoric, making them look like the true guardians of the public purse.
However, when it came time to actually vote in the Legislative Yuan, something strange happened. The “opposition” vanished. The NPP members ended up voting right along with the DPP to pass the program.
This is a textbook case of “playing fake ball” (打假球). They want the credit for being an independent, critical force to satisfy their “awakened” young base, but they also don’t want to actually cross the DPP or lose their seat at the table of power.
The NPP has often been called the “Power Harvesting Party” (收割力量) because they excel at taking credit for the hard work of social activists. Now, they’ve perfected the art of the “Two-Faced Reaper”—harvesting both the anger of the opposition and the benefits of supporting the ruling party.
For those who voted for the NPP thinking they were getting a “third force” that would truly hold the government accountable, this must be a bitter pill to swallow. It seems that in the hallowed halls of the Legislative Yuan, “progressive values” are easily traded for political convenience.