Following Saturday’s special municipality elections, things remain largely unchanged, with both the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) holding on to the cities they already controlled. In other words, there was no clear winner and no clear loser, and there were no signs of any major changes in either the KMT’s or the DPP’s voter base.
Party voter base continues to be the most important influence on the outcome of elections, and it is also the simplest variable to understand. The candidates’ charisma, their views and opinions or any unexpected incidents were secondary, not to say marginal, to the results of Saturday’s elections. In contrast, the parties’ voter base, that has existed for the past two decades, remains solid.
The DPP’s election campaigns focused on local governance, as the party refused to mention national sovereignty, cross-strait relations or even the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), in an attempt to regain the confidence of voters in the party’s ability to govern at the local level.
Led by Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), the DPP tried to present a fresh image and a more moderate election platform to attract swing voters and young voters, and thereby expand its voter base. Judging from the election results, however, the strategy was not particularly successful in Taipei city and county
That raises the question why the voter base for Taiwan’s two main political parties seems to be set in stone. For the DPP, this is a question that requires some serious consideration. If the party continues to command the support of just 40 percent of the electorate, it will be forced to rely on a split in the KMT to win elections and a return to government will continue to be little more than a pipe dream.
This is especially true because the DPP will be unable to avoid such key issues as national status and cross-strait relations in the 2012 presidential election. Despite winnning a plurality of the votes on Saturday, it stands little chance in 2012 if it cannot break out of this mold.
Tsai’s reforms over the past two years have been broadly the correct choice and the fact that the party’s candidate, Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), fought a good and spirited battle for the Taipei mayorship is worthy of praise.
However, this alone is insufficient and the DPP needs to do more. So long as the voter base of both parties remains unchanged, all the reforms in the world are in vain, because the parties remains unwilling to face several core issues that they need to deal with.
With the special municipality elections over, the focus of attention now turns to the 2012 presidential election and although Tsai, Su Tseng-chang and even Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) lost their election bids, they all remain viable choices for the party’s presidential ticket.
How to bring about a shift in the DPP and the KMT voter base and how to ensure that the DPP surpasses recent achievements are two issues that are likely to severely test the political skills of the party leadership over the next 15 months.
Wang Yeh-lih is a professor of political science at National Taiwan University.
TRANSLATED BY PERRY SVENSSON
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