In the run-up to the presidential and legislative elections, Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) called some opinion polls “bogus.” Rumors circulated that the election process and results might be unfair. These rumors, which made many TPP supporters feel uneasy, have grown louder since the election results were announced. It is reminiscent of the unrest that followed former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) narrow-margin re-election in 2004. One video alleging vote rigging has received more than 2 million views. Such a video could seriously tarnish the good image Taiwan’s voting system has attained over the course of many years.
Many unscientific opinion polls were carried out before the election and they likely engendered unrealistic confidence in Ko’s supporters. Since the results have come out, no one is taking responsibility or being held responsible for those fake opinion polls. Ko’s supporters are still highly strung. At such a time, the main concern for Ko and the TPP should not be about who is to become the next legislative speaker.
Instead, they should urge their supporters to calm down and stop falsely accusing the nation’s election workers of committing fraud. The public’s confidence in democracy should not be sacrificed for the sake of a single party’s political interests.
In the past, no matter which candidate had to make a concession speech, they would congratulate their successful opponent and respect the result. Even in the 2020 presidential election, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) made a speech conceding defeat, congratulating his Democratic Progressive Party rival, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), and promised to abide by the result. In contrast, Ko’s post-defeat speech hardly mentioned these things. Just as his supporters were sowing election doubts, he appeared to egg them on by blaming his defeat on the election procedure and its lack of absentee voting. The TPP claims to view things in a scientific and rational manner. From this perspective, news reports identified problems at fewer than 20 of the 17,000 ballot-counting stations — far too few to impact the elections.
The book How Democracies Die by US professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt says how, in past US presidential elections, the Republican and Democratic parties maintained a degree of institutional autonomy. They respected the results, avoided raising unfounded doubts about the election process and did not view their opponents as treasonous enemies. The authors wrote that this unspoken rule remained unbroken until former president Donald Trump was elected.
By the same token, now that the election results have been announced from ballot-counting stations staffed, among others, by hundreds of TPP supporters whom the party encouraged to serve as scrutineers, Ko and the TPP should play their proper part by urging their supporters to keep calm, respect the democratic process and accept the election results.
Ko and the TPP seriously harm society with their spurious accusations of vote-rigging. They might want to explain to their supporters why some opinion polls were so different from the election results, but they should not drag down the entire democratic system.
Furthermore, how, in the current atmosphere, are they to set things right for all those election workers who spent an entire Saturday in a polling booth, yet still have to suffer unjustified accusations of vote-rigging? How do they intend to restore people’s faith in the democratic system, and will they ever apologize to their electoral rivals and to their own supporters?
Ko Chia-wei is a former president of the National Chengchi University Student Association.
Translated by Julian Clegg
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of
RSS