Weekend Review

A few things happened over the weekend and Monday. The Taipei Times reports here on the incoming cabinet. No comment on that yet -- I don't feel well informed enough to say anything about most of these people.

Most exciting for me (since I sent an email suggestion to him about this after the election), Frank Hsieh announced plans for a shadow cabinet, though he says it would be a "civic group," and seemingly not be officially affiliated with the party. However, according to the China Times, the idea for a shadow cabinet was a consensus in a DPP meeting held to thrash out a reform plan, so it should have some serious ties to the DPP.

Hsieh must have anticipated some raised eyebrows over the apparent conflict between setting up a shadow cabinet and his promise to quit politics, but Hsieh assures us there's no conflict whatsoever. We'll have to wait and see what role he plays.

Personally, I hope there's some sort of conflict. Is a shadow cabinet any good if it can't be used by the DPP as a platform builder? The idea is to showcase the guys you would want running the various ministries, so you want this to be less a civic group and more a political entity. Of course, it's great if the shadow cabinet isn't' a bunch of party hacks but pragmatic experts in their field, which might be harder to guarantee with a party organization. So I guess we'll have to see exactly what sort of shadow cabinet is formed.

As the Liberty Times article points out, Frankie didn't tell us where and when he would establish this shadow cabinet, and I've heard few other details. It hasn't been reported on too heavily,
partly because the real cabinet is being announced now and partly because if you say "shadow cabinet," everyone here would say "what's that?"