The results of the legislative elections are in. There were no major changes to the overall blue-green division of the political map. Looking deeper, however, several issues stand out.
First, there were great differences between the final outcome and pre-election opinion polls, with candidates gaining high approval ratings in the polls failing to get elected or just barely making it, and candidates with low approval ratings being elected by a landslide. This applied to a surprising number of candidates.
The main reason is that tactical voting aimed at saving weak candidates resulted in an "overcorrection." But couldn't it also be that the inaccuracy of the polls was a result of some opinion poll respondents deliberately giving misleading answers?
Second, in the pan-green camp, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) saw a small increase of two seats, while the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) lost one seat. A few long-standing legislators failed to get re-elected, making room for new legislators, although not necessarily by means of a deliberate generational transition.
Third, although the pan-blue camp saw a slight increase in seats, with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the New Party achieving excellent results by participating under the KMT banner, the People First Party (PFP) lost a quarter of its seats. This highlights the sharp division within the blue camp, and the public will now pay close attention to whether more PFP mem-bers join the KMT.
Fourth, the centrist Non-
Partisan Solidarity Union did not do too well, and ideologically less extreme blue and green candidates failed to get elected, for example the DPP's Shen Fu-hsiung (沈富雄) and the KMT's Apollo Chen (陳學聖). Does this mean that centrist forces are weakening and that their space is shrinking? A polarization of the situation
and a withering away of centrist forces would be detrimental to Taiwan's society.
Fifth, the landslide victories of some candidates was clearly a result of sympathy voting, which is a reflection of the sympathetic nature of the Taiwanese public, who want to reach out to those in a difficult situation. This is a method that will be widely used by electoral candidates in future, to the point where voters will become numb and do nothing. However, indiscriminate use of the "sympathy" card clearly shows a lack of social responsibility.
Although there were no changes to the blue-green
political map, the green camp's unrealistically high expectations of winning a majority in combination with their advantage of being in government means that the minor increase in seats in fact should be seen as a defeat.
If this outcome was simply a matter of vote allocation, then so be it, because this system is on its way out.
More importantly, the DPP must review their campaign issues and means of implementing strategy. On the political spectrum, the TSU is dark green, while the DPP, as a result of being in power, should now be a lighter shade of green, as represented by the "middle way" that President Chen Shui-bian (
However, toward the end of the campaign, Chen, who is also chairman of the DPP, brought out the slogan "correcting names." Although the slogan did not extend to the correction of the nation's official title as advocated by the TSU -- nor did it involve other major, sensitive issues, nor could it have been accomplished overnight -- this could not be clearly explained during the campaign, and was therefore mixed up with the TSU's proposal, leading to the loss of moderate voters.
Although the DPP tried hard to broaden its appeal, it did not succeed, and still had to compete with the TSU for votes.
So the blue camp maintains its legislative majority. If the blues continue their past opposition for the sake of opposition, only considering their own advantage, they will perpetuate Taiwan's political gridlock, and that is not good for the country.
After this battle, the DPP must take an even humbler approach when summing up its experiences and lessons learned.
It must carefully assess internal and external factors and create more pragmatic policies to straighten the road ahead and lead Taiwan toward the goal of obtaining regular national status.
Paul Lin is a commentator based in New York.
Translated by Perry Svensson
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
RSS