The Central Election Commission (CEC) announced last night that Chen Shui-bian (
According to official election results provided the CEC, the total number of valid ballots cast yesterday was 12,914,422. The Chen-Lu ticket won 6,471,970 votes, or 50.11 percent of total eligible votes, while the Lien-Soong ticket won 6,442,452 votes, or 49.89 percent of the total.
PHOTO: TANG PIN-CHAO. TAIPEI TIMES
Of the 16,504,179 eligible voters, 13,251,719 cast votes, a turnout of 80.288 percent. The number of invalid ballots was 337,297, or 2.5 percent of the total ballots cast.
"The Chen-Lu ticket has won the 11th Presidential, Vice-Presidential Election," CEC Chairman George Huang (
Chen's margin of victory, 30,598 votes, was much less than in the 2000 presidential election.
In that year Chen won 4,977,697 votes (39.30 percent) to Soong's 4,664,972 (36.84 percent) and Lien's 2,925,513 (23.10 percent).
The results indicate that the pan-blue camp's assumption that Lien and Soong together would win the same number of votes as they won as rivals four years ago was misplaced.
In this year's election, the northern region -- Taipei City, Taipei County, Keelung City, Ilan County, Taoyuan County, Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County -- the Lien-Soong ticket won 54.77 percent to Chen-Lu's 45.23 percent of valid votes.
In Taipei City, the Lien-Soong ticket won 56.53 percent to Chen and Lu's 43.47 percent.
"In the past four years, President Chen has been focusing on the development of all regions except Taipei, while during the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) rule, Taipei had been the focus of their administration. Therefore, it is not surprising that in this election, the pan-blue camp had a landslide victory in the Taipei regions," said Ku Chung-hwa (
In the Taipei City mayoral election in 2002, KMT candidate Ma Ying-jeou (
The DPP also seemed to make some progress in the Hakka majority areas of Hsinchu county and city, Taoyuan County and Miaoli County.
It has tried to court Hakka voters over the past four years by establishing a Hakka-language television station and reviving Hakka culture and language.
In the 2000 election, the DPP ticket won no more than 37 percent in any of these regions. The Chen-Lu ticket this time won nearly 45 percent in Taoyuan County and Hsinchu County.
The southern region again proved to be the stronghold of the pan-green camp. In Chiayi county and city, Tainan city and county and Kaohsiung City, the Chen-Lu ticket won more than 55 percent of the vote.
"Given the DPP's southern Taiwan grassroots strategy, it is no surprise that the southern region has been the DPP's stronghold," Ku said.
Nantou County, formerly home of the Taiwan Provincial Government and a stronghold of former governor Soong, also became more green.
In the previous presidential election, Soong, running as an independent, won 46.94 percent of total vote to Chen's 34.49 percent. This time, the pan-green camp won 48.75 percent of votes in the county to the pan-blue camp's 51.25 percent, despite criticism from the pan-blue camp of the DPP government's efforts to rebuild the county following the 921 earthquake in 1999.
"In the next four years, the DPP administration should put its emphasis on the reconciliation of different ethnic groups," Ku said.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
Former Taiwan People’s Party chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) may apply to visit home following the death of his father this morning, the Taipei Detention Center said. Ko’s father, Ko Cheng-fa (柯承發), passed away at 8:40am today at the Hsinchu branch of National Taiwan University Hospital. He was 94 years old. The center said Ko Wen-je was welcome to apply, but declined to say whether it had already received an application. The center also provides psychological counseling to people in detention as needed, it added, also declining to comment on Ko Wen-je’s mental state. Ko Wen-je is being held in detention as he awaits trial
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