The Hualien County commissioner by-election is now over. Many people defined it as a prelude to next year's presidential election. But Hualien accounts for only 2 percent of the national electorate. The election outcome can only have a limited effect on voter behavior in next year's presidential election.
However, it may have a bigger impact on the formulation of campaign strategies in the political parties. Instead of calling it a "prelude," we should probably call it an important drill or rehearsal for the pan-blue and pan-green camps before the presidential election. It is a rare experience for all political parties, and the results has uncovered many areas that need to be reviewed and improved.
The DPP was obviously the biggest loser in this drill. With massive administrative resources, the party mobilized unprecedented manpower and material support, but saw no increase in the number or percentage of votes it garnered. Instead, both figures have fallen. From the very beginning, the DPP has continuously made mistakes, both strategically and tactically. First of all, the party wanted to repeat the Chen Ming-wen (
When Liu withdrew from the race under pressure, You Ying-lung (
For the KMT-PFP camp, the election victory has provided an invaluable experience in cooperation in preparation for the presidential election. However, the alarming and laborious campaign process of an election that many initially believed the blue camp would easily win, the chaos in the campaign system and the opposition from the grassroots level have also sowed the seeds of anxiety for the presidential election. Beside, the blue camp was still unable to propose any impressive public policy during the campaign. The KMT-PFP camp needs to review and improve all these in the presidential election.
The presidential election eight months from now is already cut out to be a showdown between the blue and green camps. There will be no "dump-save effect" or strategic voting effect, which has happened many times in single-seat elections in the past. Basically, the coming presidential election will be a partisan clash between the blue and green camps.
To win the election, both sides will have to seek decisive majority support instead of just a plurality. Strategically, candidates will certainly have to tilt toward the center if they want to win. Given that the voter bases of both the green and blue camps are already fixed, winning over the support of floating or undecided voters will definitely become the most important strategic objective in the presidential election. There are higher ratios of so-called "independent voters" in older age brackets, lower education levels, non-metropolitan areas, among the farmers and fishermen and among women.
With its abundant experience in election campaigns, the DPP certainly knows this reasoning. From its recent series of actions aimed at strengthening its grassroots organization, winning over local factions, and making inroads directly into the township level, we can see the DPP's ambition to strengthen its "organizational warfare," which has always been viewed as its weak spot. In light of the Hualien election, the overall direction in the DPP's strengthening of its grassroots-level operations were correct.
However, the DPP should carefully evaluate how to avoid falling into the old KMT rut of "black gold" collaboration, or even getting bogged down in a quagmire by picking up whatever the KMT throws away. Influence at the grassroots level need to be cultivated on a long-term basis. Ultimately, expediencies and stealing vote captains from other parties are like drinking poison to quench one's thirst. Another core issue for the DPP to reflect on is: why was the party able to continuously increase its vote percentage in the times when the party chairman had to borrow money to run election campaigns? Now the party is in power, has money, and controls massive administrative resources, why is it that this has not helped the DPP garner more votes? Can the DPP really learn a lesson from its defeat in Hualien?
The Hualien campaign shows that the blue camp still relies more on "organizational warfare" than on "propaganda warfare." In the presidential election, the extent of opposition from local factions and vote captains could be enough to shake the blue camp's influence at the grassroots level or even to affect the election outcome. The KMT and the PFP were unable to cooperate thoroughly at the grassroots level in Hualien's unique political environment.
In the future, how the KMT and PFP can both avoid the DPP's divisive tactics or prevent DPP attempts to entice vote captains away in cities and counties where factional grudges are even more entangled will be a test of the political wisdom of the KMT-PFPs' top leadership. How the blue camp can propose a policy platform that is closer to the people's wishes -- apart from the political discourse of a "second transition of political power" -- will also be a key factor in winning over middle-of-the-road and young voters.
The Hualien County commissioner by-election has ended, but the presidential election campaign has begun. In the inevitable partisan and ideological showdown, a key minority may swing the election outcome. The campaign process in Hualien seems to have predicted this.
Wang Yeh-lih is a professor of political science at Tunghai University.
Translated by Francis Huang
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