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KMT wins two-thirds majority

TAIPEI TIMES STAFF REPORTERS
Sunday, Jan 13, 2008, Page 1

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) scored a resounding victory over the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in yesterday's seventh legislative elections, winning 81 seats, including 61 district legislator seats, to secure a two-thirds majority that gives it extra legislative powers.

The DPP, despite winning 38.17 percent of the total vote, garnered just 13 district legislator seats.

The Non-Partisan Solidarity Union (NPSU) came in third, with three seats, the People First Party (PFP) claimed one of the six Aboriginal seats and an independent candidate secured victory in Kinmen County.

The other parties -- including the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) and the New Party -- faired poorly, with none of them reaching the 5 percent threshold required to win legislator-at-large seats.

As a result, the 34 legislator-at-large seats were split between the two main parties, with the KMT receiving 20 seats and the DPP 14.

The Central Election Commission (CEC) said overall turnout for the district legislative poll was 58.50 percent, or 10,050,619 voters.

Both referendums held in conjunction with yesterday's vote failed to attain the 50 percent turnout required for them to pass.

The DPP's plebiscite on recovering the KMT's stolen assets attracted 26.34 percent of voters, or 4,550,881 votes. It received a total of 3,891,179 affirmative votes.

The KMT-initiated referendum on empowering the legislature to investigate corruption involving high-level government officials had a 26.08 percent turnout, with 2,304,136 affirmative votes and 1,656,890 negative votes out of a total of 4,505,927 ballots cast.

In response to the results, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) stepped down as DPP chairman.

Chen, calling the election loss the "worst setback" in the history of the party, told a press conference: "I should and I am willing to shoulder all of the responsibility."

"I resign as chairman, effective immediately. I feel very sorry and I feel shamed by this election result," he said.

KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) told a press conference at party headquarters:"We offer our deepest appreciation for today's election result."

Wu, with other party leaders at his side, including presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), said: "We understand that you have put your faith in us, but our joy should last for only one night. Starting tomorrow, we will have more responsibilities to undertake."

"I promise we will not abuse the power of the majority but we will use it to stabilize society and unite people, and we will respect the minority in parliament," Wu said.

The KMT's two-thirds majority would allow the party to impeach the president in its own right. In addition, with support from four other legislators, the KMT would have a three-quarters majority and could put constitutional amendments to a referendum.

"It is clear that people are yearning for change after eight years of suffering," Ma said.

He said "a more difficult task" lies ahead -- securing the presidency.

The KMT swept all eight seats in Taipei City, a goal it had dubbed "Sending Eight Immortals Across the Ocean" (八仙過海).

It marked only the second time since 1983 that all of the party's candidates for Taipei City had been elected, the city's Election Commission said.

The DPP had hoped legislative candidates Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康) and Wang Shih-Cheng (王世堅), in particular, could upset their KMT opponents.

Tuan declared defeat at about 6:48pm after trailing KMT opponent Lin Yu-fang (林郁方) by more than 23,000 ballots.

"I will move on after reflecting deeply. What is more disappointing was the defeat of the DPP overall. There may be a lot of reasons for our defeat, but we will shoulder the responsibility together," Tuan said at his campaign headquarters.

The KMT also won all six seats in Taoyuan County, with all its candidates declaring victory before the official results were announced.

In Taipei County, the KMT won 10 of 12 seats, though DPP candidate and singer/actor Yu Tien (余天) won for the DPP in Sanchong (三重) -- a pan-green stronghold -- defeating his KMT opponent Chu Chun-hsiao (朱俊曉) by just 2,000 votes.

Both Yu and Chu Chun-hsiao declared victory before the Sanchong City Office announced Yu's victory, sparking concern over the result.

Police were dispatched to prevent conflict as supporters of candidates converged on the area.

As expected, KMT Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇), a close aide of KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), defeated DPP Legislator Lee Sen-zong (李顯榮), a former KMT member who switched allegiance to the DPP after he failed to win the KMT's nomination.

The KMT won 19 of the 21 legislative seats in Miaoli County, Taichung County, Taichung City, Changhua County, Nantou County, Yunlin County, Chiayi County and Chiayi City, losing only Taichung County's second constituency and the second constituency of Chiayi County.

In Changhua County, the KMT took all four seats, with Cheng Ju-fen (鄭汝芬) taking advantage of her grassroots support to defeat the DPP's Lin Chung-mo (林重謨).

In Chiayi City, the KMT's Chiang Yi-hsiung (江義雄) defeated DPP Legislator Sandy Yen (莊和子) because of a split in the vote between Yen and the TSU's Ling Tzu-chu (凌子楚).

In southern Taiwan, a DPP stronghold, the party lost its dominance in two of the five cities and counties.

The KMT prevailed in three of five districts in Kaohsiung City, with incumbent DPP Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) and DPP candidate Kuo Wen-cheng (郭玟成) triumphing by small margins.

The KMT also won three out of the four seats in Kaohsiung County, with only DPP Legislator Chen Chi-yu (陳啟昱) winning a close victory over his KMT rival, Wu Kuang-hsun (吳光訓).

Three-term KMT Legislator Lin Yi-shih (林益世) surprised many by beating former Kaohsiung County commissioner Yu Cheng-hsien (余政憲) by 12.66 percent, even though Yu's family is influential in the area.

The KMT's performance in Kaohsiung County was extraordinary, as in the legislative poll in 2004, the pan-green camp garnered 55.73 percent of the vote in Kaohsiung County while the pan-blue camp won only 39.76 percent of ballots.

The DPP managed to win two seats in Tainan City by narrow margins and two out of the three seats in Pingtung County.

Among the five southern cities and counties, the DPP only managed to retain its predominance in the three districts of Tainan County -- the home of the president.

The KMT grabbed all three seats along the East Coast, winning Ilan, Hualien and Taitung counties.

As expected, the KMT was victorious in Matsu, while the NPSU managed to secure Penghu County. The race in Kinmen, however, was upset by independent challenger Chen Fu-hai (陳福海).

Pan-blue candidates won five of the six seats available to Aborigines. The other one was taken by an NPSU candidate.

Meanwhile, Minister of the Central Personnel Administration Chou Hung-hsien (周弘憲) said yesterday that Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) and his Cabinet will resign en masse on Jan. 28, in line with the constitutional convention that the Cabinet must be responsible to the new legislature.

Chou said the Executive Yuan will call a Cabinet meeting on Jan. 28 to approve the resignation before the new legislature convenes on Feb. 1.

He said President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), authorized by Additional Articles of the Constitution to appoint the premier without authorization from the legislature, will decide whether to approve the resignation after he receives the proposal.

It is expected Chen will retain Chang in his position.

The constitutional convention that the premier and his Cabinet must resign after each Legislative Yuan election was established by an October 1995 constitutional interpretation which said that the practice was based on the rationale that the executive shall be responsible to the legislature.

Earlier yesterday morning, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) condemned his rival Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) for exploiting a legal loophole to visit candidates' campaign offices.

"As a presidential candidate, he set a very bad example," Hsieh said. "How do you expect Ma to abide by the law if he is elected."

Hsieh was referring to Ma's last-minute decision to cancel a plan to accompany candidates to the polling stations and instead visit their campaign headquarters.

Director of the DPP's Culture and Information Department Hsieh Hsin-ni (謝欣霓) said that Ma may have violated the election code by visiting candidates' campaign offices. Her party would report the incident to the Central Election Commission, she said.

"He is not qualified to run for president if he breaks the law," she said, adding that any political party or individual is banned from campaigning or electioneering on election day, according to the Election and Recall Law of Civil Servants (公務人員選舉罷免法).

Ma may still have contravened the election code even if he did not accompany candidates while they voted, she said.

Ma had planned to accompany two legislative candidates in Kaohsiung County and two in Taipei City and County yesterday.

"DPP figures have accompanied candidates to cast their ballots in previous elections, so why was that not in violation of the law? The CEC is run by the DPP and this is a dirty trick," Ma said in Shulin (樹林).

Later, after casting his own ballot in Taipei City's Muzha, Ma said he had decided not to accompany party candidates out of respect for the CEC. However, he insisted that accompanying candidates as they cast their ballots should not be considered a violation of the law as long as no campaigning activity took place.

"I don't think this is a violation. However, the CEC made an announcement last night and we decided to respect it," Ma said.

Staff Reporters: Ko Shu-ling, Mo Yan-chih, Shih Hsiu-chuan, Flora Wang, Jimmy Chuang and Shelley Shan.

Additional reporting by AFP
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