A media organization recently published the results of an opinion poll regarding the candidates who are to run for Yilan County commissioner in the local elections on Nov. 26, with only 2 percent of respondents saying that they would vote for the Taiwan People’s Party’s (TPP) candidate. Even among respondents who identified with the TPP, only 2 percent said that they would cast their ballot for the party’s candidate.
In comparison, Yilan County Commissioner Lin Zi-miao (林姿妙) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), who is seeking re-election, garnered the support of 71 percent of respondents who identified with the TPP.
A similar picture emerged for the Taoyuan mayoral race. A separate media poll published at the end of last month showed that only 27 percent of respondents identifying with the TPP said they would vote for the TPP’s candidate, while former premier Simon Chang (張善政), the KMT’s candidate, had the support of 49 percent of those who identified with the TPP.
These results show a number of trends:
First, apart from the TPP’s chairman, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), no TPP candidates have the support of the majority of respondents who identify with the party.
Second, Ko’s cynicism toward President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) government and her Democratic Progressive Party — not to mention his mockery of both — plus the relative similarity between Ko’s cross-strait policies and those of the KMT have pushed people who identify with the TPP toward strongly rejecting the DPP and other pan-green parties, so that few of them lean toward the green end of the political spectrum.
Third, the TPP only recently came into existence. As such, it has few core values, nor are its members bound by revolutionary sentiments. People who identify with the TPP seem to be extremely pragmatic when it comes to elections — they would rather vote for KMT candidates who have a strong chance of winning than for their own party.
It looks as though TPP candidates in the mayoral and county commissioner elections will not only fail to act as “mother hens” who can consolidate votes for their party, but they will be sidelined by strategic voting among TPP supporters. Such an outcome would reinforce the TPP’s image as a one-person party focused on Ko himself, which could be the start of its downward spiral.
Huang Wei-ping is a former think tank researcher.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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