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Victory and defeat are a matter of perspective

The factors determining electoral victory and defeat are complicated. Even so, different parties and even well-known political scientists habitually oversimplify the post-election debate and specify the bare minimum they need to make their point.

Wu Yu-shan (吳玉山), who directs the preparatory office of Academia Sinica's Institute of Political Science, recently wrote in a long op-ed article in the Chinese-language China Times that "structural factors far more important than the individual candidates" shaped the results of the Taipei and Kaohsiung mayoral elections.

More concretely, Wu said that "the pro-localization stance of most voters in southern Taiwan means that they are willing to give the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] a chance while they remain wary of the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT]."

Wu added that holding fast to ideological positions in southern Taiwan means that the die-hard loyalist vote will always remain.

But Wu also said that "the pan-blue camp has fewer ideologically driven voters in northern Taiwan. Therefore, it has to highlight its past performances to win voters ... Nor should the pan-green camp think it can use its pro-localization ideology to influence northerners prone to criticizing those in power."

These arguments are unconsciously colored by northerners' prejudice towards residents of southern Taiwan. If we agree that the north could vote for either the pan-green or the pan-blue camp and that northerners are "prone to criticizing those in power," then that means that the individual candidate is more important than anything else and that there is no "structure" underlying why the north is blue and the south green.

In what way is Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), who ran for Taipei mayor, less capable than rival Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌)? Hsieh lost by 170,000 votes, just as then incumbent Taipei mayor Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), despite high approval ratings, lost his bid for re-election to Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in 1998. Were there really no ethnic and ideological factors?

But the KMT's victory in the recent mayoral elections was not complete, and the DPP's defeat was not complete. Driven by Hsieh's mayoral bid, the number of pan-green Taipei city councilors increased by three seats. In Kaohsiung, 17 of 18 KMT city council candidates were elected with 35.95 percent of the vote, a much better showing than the DPP, which only secured 15 seats and 30.49 percent of the vote. This shows that the green-blue political structure is not so solid. In addition, Chen Chu (陳菊) defeated Huang Chun-ying (黃俊英) by a razor-thin margin, more like an equally shared vote.

To increase the crisis awareness among voters, both the KMT and the DPP went overboard in their descriptions of what defeat would mean. In fact, both sides have serious internal problems to solve. If victory and complacency mean that they will lose a great opportunity to reform, they will be planting the seeds of future failure.

As a result of tactical voting in the mayoral elections, the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) and People First Party (PFP) also fared poorly in the city council elections. Maybe, however, neither the DPP's policies nor the KMT's performance strictly adhere to the ideology of the pan-green or pan-blue camps. In addition, there are class and environmental issues transcending the camp framework.

If the smaller parties can build a firm foundation for themselves and gather enough talent, there may still be a place for them after next year's legislative elections.

Chen Yi-shen is a researcher at Academia Sinica's Institute of Modern History.

Translated by Daniel Cheng
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