Mon, Mar 22, 2004 page4

• Analysts expect gains for greens come December

  • By Debby Wu / STAFF REPORTER
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  The pan-green camp stands a good chance of winning a majority of seats in the legislative election this year, experts said yesterday.

  Academics and political observers said President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) re-election Saturday showed the green camp has taken away support from the blue camp.

  They said the pan-blue alliance's efforts to invalidate the result of the presidential election may chase away supporters ahead of legislative elections in December.

  "The pan-blue camp's protest rally is damaging its image. This may estrange its Hokkien supporters, with the protests in most places being initiated by People First Party (PFP) legislators and city councilors," said Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明), a sociologist at Academia Sinica.

  "From the presidential election result we can see that the pan-blue camp's territory has diminished. While the PFP can still get hold of its loyal voters with James Soong (宋楚瑜) remaining as its leader, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) may be pressured because the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) will try to attract the KMT's Hokkien supporters," he said.

  Hsu said the KMT might shift toward the PFP to compete for its supporters.

  He predicted KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) would step down before the legislative election, and that competition for the chairmanship would be between Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).

  "If Wang takes over, he may try to secure the support of Hokkien voters in the south and the KMT's localization faction may rise within the party. But if Ma takes over, the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) is likely to flirt with Wang and invite him to join TSU, while the DPP may be interested only in cooperation with Wang rather than his membership," Hsu said.

  Ku Chung-hwa (顧忠華), a sociology professor at National Chengchi University, said the DPP would use its administrative advantages to attract the pan-blue legislators.

  "If the DPP is successful in attracting pan-blue legislators, the pan-green camp will get a majority of seats in the legislative election," he said.

  "Meanwhile, the pan-blue camp's territory has diminished. The KMT and PFP may still nominate many candidates and end up not getting a majority of seats. Then the pan-blue camp will finally become a real opposition force with the loss of a majority in the legislature," Ku said.

  Ku said that Wang is more likely than Ma to take over the KMT as long as Wang argues the point of seniority. He said if Wang takes over, the pan-green camp would have a tough time courting Wang.

  "But again, the DPP also has the problem of factional struggles. Because of these struggles, the DPP did not manage to win half the number of legislative seats in 2001, even though it had won the presidential election in 2000. If the DPP cannot resolve the problem, the same tragedy may repeat itself this year," Ku said.

  Chin Heng-wei (金恆煒), a political commentator and editor-in-chief of Contemporary Monthly magazine, said the biggest problem faced by the pan-blue camp now is the shrinkage of its territory.

  "If the pan-green camp wins the majority of seats in the legislative election, Taiwan's politics then would finally stabilize with the green camp controlling both the government and the legislature," Chin said.
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