Last Saturday's election results will make the DPP the biggest political party in the legislature. The KMT, on the other hand, continued its decline, with a reduced share of the vote and fewer seats. Meanwhile, the People First Party (PFP) made considerable gains while the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) had a successful election debut.
The results of those elections, taken together with last year's presidential election, indicate that Taiwan's democratic transformation is entering a new phase. Come February, the DPP will have a legislative plurality as well as executive power, while the KMT will be firmly and undisputedly an opposition party.
The DPP government will have considerable political clout when forging an alliance with other parties and in guiding Taiwan's development. This should end the cross-party foot-dragging of the past 18 months. The DPP will also no longer have any excuses for its performance or be able to pass the buck to opposition parties. True political accountability now looks very likely to develop.
The fruits of Taiwan's democratization have thus far not been particularly tasty. The path from authoritarianism to democracy has seldom been smooth in any country because reforms take a long time. But the DPP chose to acquire power through ethnic mobilization and by exaggerating issues of national identity. It has achieved its goal, but divided the nation in the process.
Ethnic mobilization manifested itself in last year's presidential election as well as Saturday's elections: the DPP-ruled southern Taiwan against the KMT-ruled central and northern Taiwan. During campaigns, the DPP turned cross-strait relations into an ethnic conflict, while marginalizing economic issues that affect people's livelihoods.
Taiwan's economy has declined drastically since President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) government took power, but that did not affect the party's support in the election because the campaign centered on national identity and ethnic issues. In fact, the DPP's share of the vote rose significantly.
Political manipulation of national and ethnic identity has won the DPP political power and will make it the biggest party in the legislature. But democracy will not last long if this manipulation results in a divided society.
Competition between parties is intertwined with social dynamics. Parties that ignore social development trends will do badly. The KMT's setback this time has a great deal to do with its not understanding the social dynamics of democratization, as well as its reluctance to reform. The KMT has long relied on local factions to win and maintain political power. This situation worsened and evolved into money politics while former president Lee Teng-hui (
On top of that, power struggles between local and mainlander forces within the party caused the KMT to split and prompted a brain drain of talented members. The KMT's successive election setbacks are closely related to the demise of local factions, which acquired power through personal connections and vote-buying, in an increasingly independent and cosmopolitan electorate.
In last Saturday's elections, former KMT supporters shifted their votes to PFP candidates, who have cleaner public images. (The KMT won 28 percent of the vote this time, compared to 46 percent in the previous legislative elections. The 18-percentage point decrease corresponds closely to the PFP's 20 percent share of the vote.) Meanwhile, the DPP has always enjoyed relatively high levels of support among young voters. Party politics has taken on a new dimension; the politics of discourse has replaced traditional social connections, but the KMT appears powerless to tackle the change.
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