Text: Qu Zhongsheng The 2022 election year is coming, and the Gongdou drama will surely be performed scene by scene among parties interested in competing for political positions. On October 23, 2021, after Chen Baiwei, a Taiwan radical legislator, was recalled, the by-election of the Legislative Councilor of Taichung's second constituency will begin. The DPP launched Lin Jingyi, a former legislator and a physician, to fight against traditional local forces, Yan Kuanheng, a Kuomintang member who is known for "serving voters well". Compared with the Kuomintang Central Committee's low-key support of Yan Kuanheng, the DPP can be said to have played a presidential election-level propaganda war. The DPP politicians, including President Tsai Ing-wen, supported Lin Jingyi on the platform.
Looking at the DPP bigwigs who once shared the stage with Lin Jingyi, the "factional unity" on the stage is self-evident. From the Soviet faction, the British faction, the Zheng Congress to the new trend, representatives of the factions all held hands with Lin Jingyi and shouted "Frozen Garlic". In the end, Lin Jingyi won 88,752 votes over Yan Kuanheng's 80,912 votes in the second by-election. The five districts of Shalu, Wuri, Dadu, Longjing and Wufeng were all green and blue. Tsai Ing-wen's personal reputation rose to a higher level, but Zhu Lilun was given the nickname wedding photo retouching services "Losing Lulun" because of his disappearance at the press conference that night, and after taking over as the party chairman, he suffered repeated defeats. During the by-election process, Lai Qingde, Vice President of the "New Trend Prince", and Taoyuan Mayor Zheng Wencan, the "New Trend Second Prince", frequently appeared in Lin Jingyi's campaign process - especially Lai Qingde, who also allowed the DPP to win the 2024 presidential election. It seems to have become a situation of "must be 'new' to play". A new trend from the "Lenin-like party" As one of the most well-known factions of the DPP,
New Trend has naturally a lot of anecdotes to talk about. New Trend was originally composed of editors and writers of the non-party movement magazine "New Trend Magazine" founded in 1984. These people are called "New Trend Eighteen Eagles", and they are still active in the political arena to this day. Qiu Yiren, secretary-general of the National Security Council, Wu Nairen, a leader of the DPP, former legislators Lin Zhuoshui, Hong Qichang, and former Yilan County Mayor Liu Shoucheng, etc., the new trend is strictly internal and has a strong "Lenin-style party" characteristics. Li Wenzhong, the current vice-chairman of the Auxiliary Council, once said, "The New Trend Department is a group that pays attention to 'democratic centralism', and any member can question the leaders on public policies and political issues"; the current DPP legislator Zhong Jiabin He gave his opinion, "The decision-making mechanism of the New Trend Department is 'participatory democracy with a strong socialist flavor', and there are often scenes of 'table slapping debates' in internal meetings."