الكاتب: kafej

The opposition’s failure to work together puts the DPP’s William Lai in pole position for January’s presidential election.

Taiwan’s opposition parties are due to register separate candidates for next year’s presidential elections, hours after an attempt to field a joint ticket against the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) collapsed in acrimony on live television.

The main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) is fielding Hou Yu-ih for the presidency, while Ko Wen-je, who has been polling more strongly in opinion polls, will run for the smaller Taiwan People’s Party (TPP).

The KMT chose pro-China media personality Jaw Shaw-kong as Hou’s running mate while the TPP chose one of its lawmakers Cynthia Wu.

Terry Gou, the billionaire founder of Apple supplier Foxconn, announced in August he would run as an independent, but he lags far behind the other candidates in opinion polls, and it is not clear whether he will register with the elections commission by the 09:30 GMT Friday deadline.

The January 13 election is taking place as Beijing, which views Taiwan as its own territory, steps up military and political pressure on the self-ruled island. The DPP, which says the people of Taiwan must be the ones to decide its future, is fielding current Vice President William Lai as its candidate, with Hsiao Bi-khim, Taipei’s former envoy in the United States, as his running mate. China has dubbed them “separatists” and the “independence duo”.

The opposition parties, who are seen as more Beijing-friendly, announced last week that they would field a joint candidate in a move that would have created a major challenge to Lai, who is far ahead in the polls.

But as they struggled to reach an agreement, the effort collapsed in a spectacular fashion late on Thursday when the KMT walked out of last-ditch talks at a Taipei hotel brokered by Gou and broadcast live on television.

In one of the most dramatic moments, the KMT’s Hou read a private text message from the TPP’s Ko that said Gou needed to “find a reason” to drop out of the presidential race.

DPP united

Amid the turmoil in the opposition, the DPP has remained united with Lai and Hsiao registering on Tuesday and forging ahead with their campaign.

Speaking at a rally late on Thursday, Lai poured scorn on the opposition.

“Should we dare to hand over the business of running the country to these people?” he said. “Of course, this is not OK.”

China has long warned it is prepared to use force in order to take control of Taiwan, and the KMT has sought to portray itself as the party that can best work with China and avoid conflict.

Speaking at a meeting with the media on Thursday, the DPP’s Hsiao said war was “not an option” and that the party was committed to maintaining the status quo.

“It’s important that the international community … make clear to our counterparts across the Taiwan Strait that dialogue is the only way to resolve differences,” she said.

Beijing cut high-level contact with the island and stepped up military activities soon after President Tsai Ing-wen was first elected in 2016.

It kept up the pressure after she was returned in a landslide in the last election in 2020, and has also conducted large-scale military exercises to show its displeasure following high-profile visits to the island by politicians such as then-United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or overseas trips by Tsai and Lai.

The pause was agreed to on Tuesday night, announced on Wednesday and was expected to temporarily halt the war on Thursday morning.

But the fighting did not stop and in fact, seemed to intensify.

Aerial bombardment continued, supporting Israeli forces trying to get as close as possible to the centre of Gaza City before the truce.

Hamas fighters set up ambushes to incapacitate as many tanks and armoured personnel carriers as possible before the ceasefire stops all military activity for 96 hours.

The last two days must have been the most nerve-racking for fighters on both sides since the beginning of the ground campaign.

Military historians have written volumes on the simultaneous anxiety, stress, expectation, hope, mental pressure and existential fear of soldiers in the hours before a ceasefire or truce.

In all wars, wherever and however they are fought, no soldier wants to be the last casualty before the guns go silent. As they hear the news of the imminent pause, their natural reaction is to relax, ease the efforts, for soon they are to stop all activity.

Rather than allowing that, their officers – following orders and pressure from their respective civilian authorities – push them to press on for another day, two or three. Soldiers, themselves unit commanders, hate to have to do it, knowing what effect such orders have on troop morale, but they cannot disobey their superiors.

That tense anticipation of the Zero Hour when they will, at least temporarily, lay down their weapons, is almost certainly the most stressful time of their military career.

Civilian authorities certainly must know this, so why have they allowed Zero Hour to slip to 7am on Friday, prolonging the agony of their own soldiers?

Some of it is just civilian officialdom. An alleged reason that postponed the pause was that the agreement was not formally signed by Qatar and Hamas, “only officially announced”. More red tape was involved in “clarifying the names on the lists of those to be released”. All those seemingly unnecessary obstacles delayed the start of the pause.

In all fairness, the bureaucracy is not the only thing to blame for the slow implementation of the agreement, it is just the most visible, but military commands were not rushing either.

For the truce to work, it must be made workable in the first place. Politicians agree in broad terms: “Let’s pause the fighting and exchange people”. The wording defines intent and scope, but exactly how to implement what has been agreed upon always falls to those on the ground: the military.

It is not an easy task: Officers of two enemies who have been trying to kill each other now have to talk – as fighting rages.

I have seen many ceasefires and prisoner exchanges, but do not remember a single one where a political agreement signed by big bosses could be implemented without the adversaries on the battleground working out the fine print, for the devil is always in the detail.

To start with, some officers are chosen to study the agreement and, knowing the situation on the battlefield, determine how they will carry it out. They need to decide viable, safe routes for the buses taking hostages and prisoners from one side to another, agree if the buses will have civilian or military drivers and possibly guards, decide if guards would be armed or not.

Will they be accompanied by medical personnel? At what point will they be released or transferred from one set of buses to another?

Will any soldiers participating in the exchange cross into enemy territory, and, if so, when and how will they return? Who’s responsible for clearing the roads of rubble and mines and to what point? And many more sticky, difficult issues.

Establishing first contact is easier than most people think: The adversaries listen to each other’s radio communications and often use the same walkie-talkie channels. In moments of relative calm, they will taunt each other: boasting, threatening, insulting, belittling, cursing … But after the pause was announced someone certainly called the other side and said: “My commander wants to talk to your commander about the truce.”

First, they need to confirm their authority, then start arranging an initial consultation, usually with both sides promising to keep the proposed meeting place safe and agreeing on how many negotiators and aides would meet face to face.

The moment the opposing envoys first meet is the tensest, as any seemingly trivial detail can collapse the whole deal. Who will salute first? What happens if one representative declines to shake the other’s hand? Does an Israeli officer give a military salute, given that for the Israeli side, the opposite number is a “terrorist”? What happens if they cannot agree on some issues?

With so many potential traps, the two sides often prefer to use an intermediary they trust to can help clarify matters, defuse tensions and propose mutually acceptable solutions, a middle-of-the-road approach where neither negotiating side would lose face.

It helps if the intermediary knows the situation and has dealt with both sides in the past. In Gaza, that will be the International Committee of the Red Cross/Red Crescent (ICRC).

As announced by Qatar on Thursday, the first captives are to be released at 4pm on Friday, just nine hours after the fighting is supposed to stop. That suggests that most details I listed here have already been ironed out, and that gives reason for cautious optimism.

The only slight doubt in my mind is the practicality and wisdom of starting an exchange of civilians at a time when the darkness is starting to set in. Conducting any business after the sun sets is never a very good idea in a combat zone.

It was still dark at 5:30am on January 1, 2023, when a message flashed on head constable Paramjit Singh’s phone. His police station’s WhatsApp group was reporting a fire nearby.

Singh, a tall Sikh with a thick white beard and grey moustache, got dressed and rushed to the four-storey glass and concrete building in Greater Kailash II, an upscale neighbourhood in the Indian capital. When he reached, orange flames were raging out of two rooms on the third floor of Antara Care Home for Seniors, a high-end, short-stay facility with liveried staff, round-the-clock medical care, attendants and a kitchen service that could rustle up special requests.

Kamal Kumar, 91, once married to the son of Jagjivan Ram, India’s former deputy prime minister, was staying in room 302, which was on the left. Kanchan Arora, 86, a widow and mother of four, was the patient in 301, the room on the right.

People from the neighbourhood were gathered outside the building, including the driver of the house next door who had made the call to the Police Control Room. A call had also been made to the fire department, just five minutes away, but no fire truck had arrived yet.

Inside the elder care home, there was chaos. Young men from the neighbourhood and some food delivery boys were helping patients and their attendants get out from the first and second floors.

On the third floor, however, fire from the two rooms that faced the road was creeping through the corridor and heading towards the emergency exit at the back of the building.

Six patients and their two family members were stuck in the floor’s nine rooms. Some, like Kamal Kumar, were bedridden. Others were on oxygen support or recuperating from a fracture or illness.

There were no water sprinklers, and by the time Singh tried to get in, flames had reached the staircase and the lift, making it impossible to access the third floor from inside the building.

Rescuers were trying to aim fire extinguishers, due to expire in five days, from the staircase at the flames but they were not helping.

City mayor hopes scheme can be a model for other places that are struggling to cope with surging visitor numbers.

Venice will trial an admission fee and a daily limit on visitor numbers in its overcrowded centre from next April, in a scheme the Italian city’s mayor has hailed as a world first.

The system is designed to manage the flow of tourists when visitor numbers are at their peak, local authorities said during a press conference on Thursday.

“It is the first time in the world that you do something like this, you make a city bookable,” Mayor Luigi Brugnaro said.

Under the scheme, day visitors will pay five euros ($5.45) to enter the city centre between 8:30am and 4pm during the peak tourist season from April 25 to May 5.

The fee will also apply for the remaining weekends in May and June, as well as the first two weekends of July.

Travellers will have to book their visit online and obtain a QR code that will be checked at specific entry points and grant them access to the city’s historic quarters.

Restrictions will not apply to the lagoon’s smaller islands, such as Murano, which is famous for its glass-making industry.

Authorities have debated for years, without taking action, over how best to regulate the millions of visitors who flock to the fragile, lagoon city to enjoy its picturesque canals and sights including St Mark’s Square, and the Rialto Bridge.

The historic centre has a permanent population of about 51,000 people and many worry their city, already subject to regular flooding, cannot cope with the increasing number of visitors.

The ticketing plan had been repeatedly postponed over concerns it would curb tourist revenue and compromise freedom of movement.

But city authorities finally decided to push forward with the experiment after UNESCO warned it could list Venice as an at-risk world heritage site.

Residents and people who were born in Venice as well as students, workers and homeowners in the city will be exempt from the scheme, while access for children under the age of 14 will be free once they have registered.

Those who fail to comply with the measures will face fines of between 50 and 310 euros (between $54 and $340)

Brugnano said authorities were ready to make changes to the system to ensure it works, but suggested it could “serve as a model for other fragile and delicate cities that must be protected”.

The new era began in a meeting room that was too small to cope with the crowd.

At one end, a crush of journalists – cameras bashing into each other, reporters craning for a sight. And at the other – the man who has just shaken Dutch politics to its core.

Geert Wilders walked in to be greeted by the cheers of his colleagues. The room was allocated to his party when they only had 17 MPs; now they have more than double that. Little wonder the room was squashed.

They toasted their success with champagne, and all raised a glass to the health of the Netherlands. During his campaign, Wilders said he would always put his country first. It isn’t quite “Make the Netherlands Great Again” but it’s not far off.

Wilders has been in the public eye for decades now, but he’s never had a result like this. Not just the electoral victory that he craved, but a yawning margin over his rivals – 50% more seats than any other party. As his colleagues applauded, so he beamed.

Age has changed him – the shock of peroxide blond hair is now grey – but he still exudes confidence. Even his opponents admit, at least in private, that Wilders is a gifted orator.

We were at the far end of the room, jostling for space. A cameraman stood on a table next to me, which creaked under his weight. Questions had to be bellowed.

People talked over each other, MPs smiled at each other. For some this was their first day in a new job, and the adrenaline was flowing.

Read more on this story:
Migration a key issue for both left and right
Far-right leader celebrates as party claims most seats

So, I shout, what is the thing you would now like to achieve?

“One of the most important things we would like to do is, of course, to limit the influx of asylum and migration,” Wilders replies.

“That is one of the main themes that our campaign has tackled. That was certainly not the only theme, also about what it means for our welfare.

“Having more money in people’s pockets, receiving affordable and decent care, including care for the elderly. Having more safety on all those points on which we have campaigned is important to us. It is important for the Netherlands and we will remain grateful for a long time to come.”

We talked to Barry Madlener, who was first elected to parliament back in 2006 and now expresses a sense of shocked delight at the size of the victory.

“People came to us – they could see what a mess the country had got into. We understand the important things, like the cost of living and migration.

“I’m so happy for Geert,” he said, “because he has given so much for this. And you know, his life is not easy.”

Wilders’ unapologetic populism, as well as his life-long campaign against the influence of Islam, have led to him needing round-the-clock police protection.

It’s also meant that, for election after election, he was kept out of power. Mark Rutte, the previous prime minister, made it an article of faith that he wouldn’t do a deal with Wilders.

So what changed? In the Rotterdam district of Charlois, there is litter billowing around on the streets, blown by an icy wind. It’s the sort of weather where people walk around with heads down.

Here, we found lots of people who felt they’d been forgotten by politicians. Plenty told us they didn’t bother voting, “because nothing changes”. Those who did vote tended to go for Wilders.

‘Legitimacy’

Brian Held was walking his two young children. His brother has nowhere to live, and Brian is struggling with the cost of living. “Immigration is a big problem, because we don’t have enough houses and it’s just getting worse,” he told me.

Dr Linda Bos, an associate professor at the University of Amsterdam, thinks that by flagging up the mere prospect of a coalition, Rutte’s successor as head of the VVD, Dilan Yesilgoz-Zegerius, gave him the legitimacy Wilders had long lacked.

“They made him a serious partner – a serious option – and he played the part very well,” she said. “He’s calm, he’s charismatic and he’s very good in debates. He’s our best debater in general.”

But for all the rhetorical skill and for all the glow of victory, Wilders still faces a struggle to turn electoral success into actual power. He will need to form a coalition to take control, and that won’t be easy.

Both of his potential partners – the VVD and the newly-formed NSC party – will be very reluctant to work under him. And rivals from the left will be suggesting their own versions of a coalition, trying to squeeze Wilders out of power even though he has the highest number of seats.

The negotiations are likely to be protracted and difficult. But, for the moment at least, the Netherlands still reverberates to a political shock. After decades in the margins, Wilders has seized the brightest part of the limelight.