KMT-PFP alliance candidate Hsieh Shen-shan (謝深山) won the Hualien County commissioner election by a landslide. DPP candidate You Ying-lung (游盈隆) came second, marking his fourth defeat in the county. In this election, the residents of Hualien County, which many people traditionally refer to as "the back mountain" in a condescending tone, discovered that overnight their county had become the center of pubic attention and the object of desire for all political parties. Anybody who was anybody in Taipei was there, from the president to chairmen of political parties, from ministry heads to soap opera stars.
The same sentiment can be discovered in the the numerous Aboriginal tribes and Hakka communities in Hualien. Never before did they know that so many politicians were their kin until this election campaign.
Ironically, despite the elaborate, large-scale and high-profile campaign activities, the county's residents remain relatively uninterested in politics. Around 55 percent of the registered voters cast their votes. This figure is no better, if not worse, than for previous elections. In the county commissioner election two years ago, 60.7 percent of the electorate cast their votes, and in 1997 just 52.5 percent did so. These figures are considered low in Taiwan, a young democracy where people's interest in elections is high and where the level of voter participation in presidential elections is around 80 percent.
This is probably because the people there know only too well that the party would end as soon as the election ended last night. They did not believe that the result of the election would make any difference to their lives. Many justifiably feel skeptical about how many of the campaign promises made by Hsieh will actually be realized.
Another noteworthy phenomenon in this election was the controversy surrounding the government's large-scale campaign to crack down on vote-buying. No one denies that intrusion into people's rights beyond what is already permitted by the law is not warranted under any circumstances, not even to crack down on vote-buying. It still seemed odd that the government's efforts were so unappreciated, and how much they appeared to have worked against the ruling camp. Of course, the ruling camp has the pan-blue camp to thank for inciting all these negative sentiments.
One cannot help but wonder how much the people in Taiwan are willing to put up with in order to enjoy real democracy? After all, vote-buying can seriously distort the expression of popular will. Do people draw the line when their lives are inconvenienced by traffic jams caused by police checks on the roads or searches in their neighborhoods? Some pro-pan-blue newspapers have used these to try to provoke resentment in Hualien. In all likelihood, they probably succeeded to some degree.
It was also sad to see members of the Hualien Prosecutors' Office abusing their authority. Only hours before the election began, a supporter of You Ying-lung was taken into custody and then later released on bail by the Hualien Prosecutors' Office. Surprisingly, the KMT not only knew this was about to happen but in fact made a public announcement about it during the campaign rally on the eve of the election. The neutrality of the prosecutors' office has come under serious scrutiny as a result. How much did this event affect the result of the election? No one knows.
With the Hualien election out of the way, the parties are getting ready for the big event -- the presidential election. While it is hard to see any real connection between the Hualien election and the presidential election, at least all the parties got a trial run before the real thing.
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