Pan-Green Coalition

The Pan-Green Coalition (zh-tsp|s=泛绿联盟|t=泛綠聯盟|p=Fànlǜ Liánméng;) or Pan-Green Camp, is currently an informal political alliance in the Republic of China (Taiwan), consisting of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), and the minor Taiwan Independence Party (TAIP). The name comes from the colors of the Democratic Progressive Party, which originally adopted green in part because of its association with the environmental movement. In contrast to the Pan-Blue Coalition, the Pan-Green Coalition favors Taiwan independence over Chinese reunification, although members in both coalitions have moderated their policies to reach voters in the center.

This strategy is helped by the fact that much of the motivation that voters have for voting for one party or the other are for reasons that have nothing to do with relations with mainland China. This is particularly true among swing voters. For much of the 1990s the parties which later formed the Pan-Green Coalition greatly benefited from the perception that they were less corrupt than the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) .

The Pan-Green Coalition formed in the aftermath of the 2000 ROC Presidential election, after which Lee Teng-hui was expelled from the Kuomintang and created his own party, the Taiwan Solidarity Union, which maintains a pro-independence platform.

The internal dynamics of the Pan-Green Coalition are different from those of the Pan-Blue coalition. Unlike the Pan-Blue coalition, which consists of relatively equal-sized parties with very similar ideologies, the pan-green coalition contains the DPP, which is much larger and more moderate than the TSU. So rather than coordinating electoral strategies, as in the case of the parties within the Pan-Blue coalition, the presence of the TSU keeps the DPP from moving too far away from its Taiwan independence roots. In local elections competition tends to be fierce between Pan-Green candidates from different parties and, as a rule, joint candidates are not proposed.

The Green Party Taiwan is not part of the Pan-Green Coalition.

See also

* Politics of the Republic of China
* Pan-Blue Coalition
* Pan-Purple Coalition, a social activist umbrella group.

External links

* [http://taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2003/08/12/2003063335 Taipei Times editorial on the colored alliances]