When these protests began to take shape, the administration demonstrated true goodwill to communicate and promote mutual understanding. It reached some agreements and even postponed the implementation of the more controversial policies. Ostensibly, the administration is responsive to the people. For example, the spokesperson for Taiwan Agro Fighters United (TAFU) was pleased with the result of the recent summit on agriculture. However, the administration is now running into a very serious crisis following this chain of events.

The administration, therefore, must thoroughly review all the policies formulated after the decision was made to raise health insurance fees. Some of the questions that need to be examined include the suitability of the policies, what went wrong in the decision-making process, the efficacy of the proposed reforms and why the reforms triggered public discontent.

To get to the bottom of the matter, the DPP administration is now facing problems head-on that were already developing under the KMT. Some of the problems that the former KMT administration did not dare to touch include taxing elementary and high school teachers and reform of farmers' and fishermen's credit cooperatives. For these critical and complex issues, the DPP administration should demonstrate its decisiveness and wisdom to draw up feasible policies that can prevent backlashes. It is evident that the Presidential Office, the five branches of government and the DPP's legislative caucus have not done a good job in policymaking.

The Executive Yuan and the departments under its jurisdiction are responsible for policymaking and implementation. Since the health insurance fee hikes resulted in mass demonstrations and even led to a political crisis, it is clear that the policymaking process and the policies themselves have problems. The lack of coordination among key officials has also far-reaching consequences. If departments cannot work in consort, the policies will fail. The Executive Yuan's unsatisfactory performance in promoting government affairs is therefore the most pressing problem of all. In any case, the Executive Yuan must reorganize and start anew.

It is the Executive Yuan that has been prompting the reforms with the Presidential Office taking no responsibility. Actually, the president has a great impact on policy decisions now that his premier nominees are virtually guaranteed to be appointed.

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), for example, once argued that the reform of the farmers' and fishermen's associations would continue even if the administration risked losing power. To say that the president has nothing to do with policy decisions is not persuasive. Whether the president and his advisors put their heart and soul into the reforms is a crucial factor.

The president's daily schedule is too full, thereby making him unable to devote much attention to national affairs. The president recently attended many ceremonial activities in addition to campaigning for his party's mayoral candidates in Taipei and Kaohsiung in the last few weeks.

Most of these activities hardly related to the promotion of national affairs. And the time spent on national affairs has been therefore limited. Chen will never be a president that goes on tours and cuts ribbons. Besides, A-bian could not bear to eschew national affairs if there is no work to do. But, has A-bian focused his attention on national affairs? From some of his inappropriate speeches and statements, we can see that he is neither focused nor diligent.

The senior advisors to the president and national policy advisors have not brought their skills and talents into full play. A-bian takes advantage of these senior positions to mostly reward and win over his loyalists. On the payroll, there are 14 senior advisors to the president, 28 national policy advisors and nine strategy advisors in the Presidential Office.

The 51 presidential advisors, who outnumber the Executive Yuan's 44 Cabinet members, not only do little but also cause delay implementing policies. It is said that the president rarely adopts the views of these presidential advisors.

Instead, he relies on his office staff when it comes to decision-making. The staff members, however, lack the necessary experience and speciality in relevant issues. In sum, the decision-making mechanism of the Presidential Office is the source of political instability.

The president is serving concurrently as the chairman of the DPP. The so-called party-government synchronization, however, has not really come into force. The DPP's legislative caucus also seems not to take part in the decision-making process. Many DPP legislators lashed out at the recent change of policies concerning the farmers' and fishermen's associations. The entire political scene has been knocked out of balance within a short period of time. The developments have been particularly unfavorable for the DPP in the Taipei and Kaohsiung mayoral races.

The Presidential Office, the five branches of government and the DPP headquarters should therefore devise long-range plans to solve the crisis. Otherwise the DPP administration will lose more popular support and our country and society will become unstable.

Chiu Hei-yuan is a research fellow at the Institute of Sociology of the Academia Sinica and a member of the Taipei Society.

Translated by Grace Shaw