Clean and Capable Government, Advancing with One Heart

Clean and Capable Government
Advancing with One Heart
KMT Department of Cultural Affairs
August 6, 2008

The Party helping the Government
The Party and Government helping each other help the People

Democratic Politics is party politics. Party politics is responsible politics. Only when party politics operate smoothly, can democratic politics undergo healthy development. The so-called separation of party and government cannot withstand scrutiny. The Presidential Office, the Executive Yuan, and the KMT leadership have never advocated the separation of party and government. The Presidential Office, the Executive Yuan, and the KMT leadership are of one voice on this. The government's policies are responses to the people's needs. Boundaries are necessary between the party and the government, but the KMT believes it must help the government help the people. It must wholeheartedly help the new administration fulfill its policy commitments.

As Chairman Wu Po-hsiung said, the party and the government should not be separate entities, but rather symbiotic entities. Leaders of government may come and go, but political parties abide.

The party must assume full responsibility for the success or failure of Executive Yuan policies and the quality of its elected officials. The DPP held office for eight years. It replaced Premiers six times. It replaced 50 to 60 ministry and committee heads. Nevertheless the public gave the DPP's political performance a thumbs down. The public taught the DPP a lesson by voting it out of office.

A political party must serve as a bridge between the Executive branch and the Legislative branch. More than anyone, the ruling party wants the ruling administration to do well. The role of political parties is not merely to wage election campaigns. Election campaigns are the means by which political parties acquire the right to govern, to fullfill their campaign promises and political ideals, to serve the public, and to benefit society.