When Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Pasuya Yao (姚文智) was competing to win the party’s nomination for Taipei mayor, he pledged that he would resign as legislator, accept no other post and quit politics forever if he came in third in the election.
He was confident that he would not come in third in the Nov. 24 local elections and that confidence was not completely groundless.
Looking back at Taipei’s mayoral elections, the DPP suffered its greatest defeat in 2002, when its candidate Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) obtained 35.89 percent of the vote.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) suffered its biggest defeat in 2014, when its candidate Sean Lien (連勝文) only won 40.82 percent of the vote, the pan-blue camp’s basic supporter base in the city.
The KMT’s credibility is bankrupt, its assets have been frozen and its Taipei mayoral candidate, Ting Shou-chung (丁守中), failed to be elected in the latest legislative election. How will he defend the blue camp in Taipei? No matter how you slice it, Yao cannot come in third.
LAGGING SUPPORT
The odd thing is that Yao’s support is lagging far behind Ting and Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲). However, opinion polls are one thing and election results are another, as the case of then-DPP candidate Yu Shyi-kun’s (游錫堃) bid for the New Taipei City mayorship in 2014 shows: He almost won, despite lagging behind in the polls.
The conclusion is that as long as the DPP and the KMT can hold on to their supporters, the independent Ko has no chance and Yao will not end up in third place.
SWING VOTERS
Why then is Ko maintaining his momentum? The reason is obvious: Ting and Yao are too weak, and the two parties are losing momentum, giving Ko a golden opportunity.
First there is the issue of middle-of-the-road voters. Their growing number can erode the KMT’s and DPP’s support bases and benefit Ko, who claims to be neither blue nor green.
As Ko has lost the DPP’s endorsement, attacking the pan-blue and pan-green camps and their ideologies are his best campaign strategy. Ko’s momentum is probably a result of his taking advantage of the increasing number of swing voters, rather than being a result of his charisma.
Swing voters have always existed and they can be manipulated, but why are there so many of them in this mayoral election? It is clearly not because of Ko’s skills.
As the DPP repeatedly distances itself from “green values” and no longer insists on “green ideals,” it is losing support as older generations are turning away from it and younger generations are left unimpressed.
Not even Ko’s statement that “the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are family” seems to have harmed his campaign, but it is not very strange that young voters who did not live through the painful authoritarian rule would move toward the middle.
CYBERARMY
Second, there is the issue of the mythical netizens. According to reliable sources, Ko has spent all of his campaign funds on building a cyberarmy.
Although the momentum of a cyberarmy could help boost his support rating, the question is whether that support could be converted to votes in an election. That is a point worth taking a closer look at as we move into this new era.
More seriously, Yao’s crisis today is President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) crisis tomorrow. The issue of whether the DPP will win the November elections depends on Tsai, not the voters.
Chin Heng-wei is a political commentator.
Translated by Eddy Chang
Is a new foreign partner for Taiwan emerging in the Middle East? Last week, Taiwanese media reported that Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) secretly visited Israel, a country with whom Taiwan has long shared unofficial relations but which has approached those relations cautiously. In the wake of China’s implicit but clear support for Hamas and Iran in the wake of the October 2023 assault on Israel, Jerusalem’s calculus may be changing. Both small countries facing literal existential threats, Israel and Taiwan have much to gain from closer ties. In his recent op-ed for the Washington Post, President William
Taiwan-India relations appear to have been put on the back burner this year, including on Taiwan’s side. Geopolitical pressures have compelled both countries to recalibrate their priorities, even as their core security challenges remain unchanged. However, what is striking is the visible decline in the attention India once received from Taiwan. The absence of the annual Diwali celebrations for the Indian community and the lack of a commemoration marking the 30-year anniversary of the representative offices, the India Taipei Association and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center, speak volumes and raise serious questions about whether Taiwan still has a coherent India
A stabbing attack inside and near two busy Taipei MRT stations on Friday evening shocked the nation and made headlines in many foreign and local news media, as such indiscriminate attacks are rare in Taiwan. Four people died, including the 27-year-old suspect, and 11 people sustained injuries. At Taipei Main Station, the suspect threw smoke grenades near two exits and fatally stabbed one person who tried to stop him. He later made his way to Eslite Spectrum Nanxi department store near Zhongshan MRT Station, where he threw more smoke grenades and fatally stabbed a person on a scooter by the roadside.
Recent media reports have again warned that traditional Chinese medicine pharmacies are disappearing and might vanish altogether within the next 15 years. Yet viewed through the broader lens of social and economic change, the rise and fall — or transformation — of industries is rarely the result of a single factor, nor is it inherently negative. Taiwan itself offers a clear parallel. Once renowned globally for manufacturing, it is now best known for its high-tech industries. Along the way, some businesses successfully transformed, while others disappeared. These shifts, painful as they might be for those directly affected, have not necessarily harmed society
RSS