Jou, often depicted by local media as a reform-minded maverick within the DPP, announced that he would start up a new party, called the "Third Society Party," to reflect views not expressed by the pan-green camp, led by the DPP, and the pan-blue alliance, led by the opposition Kuomintang, the CNA reported July 15.
The new party, to be formally established in mid-September, would field candidates in the next legislative elections scheduled for Jan. 12, 2008, but it would not nominate any candidate for the upcoming presidential election, nor support the candidate of any party, Jou said in the July 18 CNA report.
For the legislative elections, Jou said the party would focus on the second ballot, where a person votes for a party, rather than the first ballot for a candidate. He was referring to the voting process under the new "single-constituency, two-ballots" system, to be implemented in the January 2008 voting.
Main platforms of the party included one for future election campaigns of all candidates to be conducted at the government's expense, putting a cap on campaign expenses and strengthening auditing of its implementation.
The TSP would give people the best party and the best candidates, rather than falling into the partisan struggle, Jou claimed. He argued that the present differences between the two political camps were in their views on national identity, not in terms of their social policies. The TSP would therefore focus on serving the common interests of the people, which were often forgotten in election campaigns.
Growing up during the 1980s student movement, the 40-year-old Jou said the party would promote a new political style that appealed to politically indifferent students and the younger generation.
The party proposed its first list of potential legislative candidates, including scholars who, while being regarded as close to the DPP in stance, shocked people last July by asking President Chen Shui-bian to step down to take responsibility for the ruling party's failure to create social justice.
One of them was Wu Rwei-ren, an Academia Sinica researcher, who said that the party's goal for entering the election race was to tell the country's young men and women that politics was not about "sharing the loot," the Chinese-language China Times reported July 16.
Write to June Tsai at june@mail.gio.gov.tw