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Voting patterns explain a great deal

`The most significant fact to emerge from the local government elections is that nothing has really changed from last year's presidential poll. Northern Taiwan, north of the Tatu River, remains dominated by the "pan-blue" camp while the south remains dominated by the "pan-green" camp.'

The DPP, People First Party (PFP) and Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) were certainly the big winners in the Dec. 1 legislative elections, while the KMT and New Party suffered crushing defeats. In the local government head elections, however, the DPP lost three seats while the KMT regained power in some major counties and cities. These results are worth a closer look.

First, let's examine the distribution of the votes in the legislative elections.

Since it began to contest local elections in 1989, the DPP had consistently attracted around 30 percent of the vote. The KMT and the New Party combined usually attracted about 56 percent. The rest of the votes went mostly to independents.

In the Dec. 1 elections, the DPP won 33.38 percent of the vote, about the same as before. But the combined "pan-green" vote, including the TSU, got 41.14 percent. While the success of pro-localization parties is significant, so too is the DPP's failure to raise its own share of the vote.

But the DPP was better able to convert votes into seats in these elections. In the 1995 legislative races, it won 33.17 percent of the seats with 32.9 percent of the vote. This time it won 38.67 percent of the seats with roughly the same proportion of the vote -- 33.38 percent. The effectiveness of the DPP's nomination systems and "vote-allocation" (配票) strategy, which aims to distribute votes evenly between candidates to maximize the number of seats won, were the two most important factors behind this improvement.

The KMT, on the other hand, won 28.56 percent of the vote, almost 18 percentage points less than its 46.43 percent share in the 1995 elections. But the combined share of the "pan-blue" camp -- the KMT, PFP and New Party -- was 49.74 percent, only a slight fall from 1995.

The most significant fact to emerge from the local government elections is that nothing has really changed from last year's presidential poll. Northern Taiwan, north of the Tatu River (大肚溪), remains dominated by the "pan-blue" camp while the south remains dominated by the "pan-green" camp.

In this year's local government elections, the share of the vote won by the DPP actually increased this year. In 1997, the party won control of 12 local governments with 43.32 percent of the vote. In last year's presidential election, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) won 39.30 percent of the vote. This year, the party reached a new high of 45.27 percent, but won only nine county commissioner and mayoral seats.

If we examine the DPP's performance in the nine counties and cities north of the Tatu River -- Taipei County, Keelung City, Ilan County, Taoyuan County, Hsinchu County, Hsinchu City, Miaoli County, Taichung County and Taichung City -- we see that the party did not do badly, attracting 45.14 percent of the vote.

Moreover, if we look into the party's performance in the nine counties and cities south of the Tatu River -- Changhua County, Nantou County, Yunlin County, Chiayi County, Chiayi City, Tainan County, Tainan City, Kaohsiung County and Pingtung County -- we see that it raked in 59.47 percent of the vote.

But in eastern Taiwan and the offshore islands, the party obviously needs to work harder.

While it is true that the "blues" continue to control northern Taiwan and the "greens" the south, the situation could change.

In the next local government heads elections, or even the 2004 presidential election, many factors could affect the outcome: a candidate's characteristics, campaign platforms and strategies, the ruling party's performance, and the complex and overlapping cross-party alliances.

Besides, even in today's political landscape, the gap between the votes won by the two camps is very small in most electoral districts. A small shift in voter preferences could radically alter the two camps' fortunes.

In any "winner-takes-all" elections, such as those for county commissioner, city mayor and the presidency, political parties and their candidates should never give up hope.

Only by understanding the characteristics of each district and remedying their own weaknesses can the parties and candidates be successful.

Wang Yeh-lih is a professor of political science at Tunghai University.

Translated by Eddy Chang
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