In the campaigns running up to tomorrow’s special municipality elections, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has tried to transform its electioneering tactics, veering away from the traditional ideological campaigns that were prevalent under former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). The best example of this new tactic is the DPP’s use of the Internet to direct its campaign rhetoric at the Web-savvy younger generation, which typically refrains from voting.
Taipei mayoral candidate Su Tseng-chang’s (蘇貞昌) campaign headquarters in downtown Taipei is a prime example of the DPP’s new direction. His technology-heavy office is more reminiscent of the Taipei International Flora Exposition’s Pavilion of the Future than a center of politics. DPP candidates elsewhere have also turned to rock concerts and popular culture to woo younger voters. However, despite this shift, the party hasn’t quite gone far enough.
In local elections, the key factor for voters, especially swing voters who are undecided until election day, is what a candidate says he or she will do to improve their daily lives. Campaign platforms in municipal elections should focus on such mundane topics as cleaning street gutters, improving traffic lights, building more bicycle paths, fixing broken street signs or improving and building parks. Those are the issues that touch the lives of swing voters, not ideological divides between the pan-green and pan-blue camps, scandals involving municipal projects, presidential politics, international affairs and whether or not an opponent was born locally.
The DPP’s candidates have spent too much time and effort attacking their Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) opponents and too little on how they would improve the municipalities they wish to govern. Su focused many a comment on Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin’s (郝龍斌) possible involvement in the Xinsheng Overpass scandal. DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) attacked her KMT Sinbei mayoral opponent Eric Chu (朱立倫) for allowing pollution to flow into Taoyuan County rivers when he was county commissioner. In Taichung, DPP mayoral candidate Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) criticized Taichung Mayor Jason Hu’s (胡志強) nine years in office, saying he hadn’t improved the crime situation, as demonstrated by a recent scandal involving police and gangsters.
In all of these examples, there was too little focus on what the candidates plan to do if they win and too much focus on the negative attributes of their opponents.
Another issue DPP candidates should have de--emphasized is their belief that this election would serve as a referendum on President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) policies. The majority of swing voters in these elections are thinking about issues that are closer to home, not about whether Ma is selling out their future. They will be voting for somebody who will build a better place for them to live and work, not somebody who will concentrate on repealing the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement.
Most importantly, they are voting for officials to lead their own governments, not for somebody who makes their stance against or for China clear. This is not a referendum on the president, it is a referendum on how well people think the DPP or the KMT can govern.
Of course, it’s now too late for the DPP to change its tactics. All it can do is hope its final mix of events directed at younger voters, coupled with traditional electioneering activities, will sway residents in those municipalities where the party might have a chance of turning the tide against the KMT.
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