He gained considerable support among Taiwan's Aborigine population when he served as provincial governor.
Soong also won 55.3 percent of the vote in the outlying islands. Here again, military communities account for a large proportion of the electorate. Interestingly, while the whole country had a voter turnout of over 82 percent, less than 70 percent of the voters on the outlying islands went to the polls.
The final region, central Taiwan, which with 19 percent of the electorate is the third largest region, was much more closely fought than expected. Soong, with 38.6 percent of the vote narrowly led Chen, who had 37.4 percent.
Most analysts felt Soong would do particularly well in this region closest to the capital of the provincial government and which was badly damaged by the earthquake on Sept. 21 last year.
It is not surprising that Soong did very well in Nantou County, where the seat of the provincial government was situated, with 47 percent of the vote.
The high level of support which Soong received without party backing raises some concerns for the future of Taiwan's politics.
First, Soong gained considerable local support throughout the island owing to his willingness to spend huge Taiwan provincial government sums on local construction works when he was provincial governor. Hopefully, this experience of "pork barrel" politics will prove episodic rather than become a permanent feature of Taiwan politics.
The other worrying feature of Soong's candidacy was the willingness of his supporters to admit that he illegally pocketed KMT funds (A錢), but excused it by saying it was much less than that pocketed by county and township executives.
Such widespread attitudes in the electorate will make Chen Shui-bian's task of implementing reform much more difficult.
Professor Bruce Jacobs (
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