Ending weeks of expectation and speculation, yesterday’s special municipality mayoral election only confirmed the status quo, with no major shift made in the five metropolitan cities in terms of the overall political landscape.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) retained hold of Taipei City, Taipei County (which will be renamed Sinbei City after its upgrade next month) and Greater Taichung, while the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) maintained control of Greater Tainan and Greater Kaohsiung.
Statistically speaking, however, the total vote-count was in the DPP’s favor as the party garnered 3,772,373 votes — accounting for 49.9 percent of all votes cast in both mayoral and councilor elections in the five special municipalities against the KMT’s 3,369,052 votes — or 44.5 percent.
PHOTO: NICKY LOH, REUTERS
Compared with the 2008 presidential election during which President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) received more than 4.5 million votes in the five special municipalities, the KMT has lost more than 1 million votes in the areas this time, while the DPP gained more than 340,000 votes in the five municipalities, raising speculation that the KMT may be in crisis even though it won more mayoral seats.
According to the Central Election Commission (CEC), the overall turnout was approximately 71.7 percent for the mayoral elections, and about 71.7 percent for city council elections in the five special municipalities.
In each individual special municipality, the voter turnout was 70.6 percent in Taipei City, 71.2 percent in Taipei County, 73.1 percent in -Taichung, 71 percent in Tainan and 72.5 percent in Kaohsiung, CEC figures showed.
PHOTO: CHANG CHIA-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
KMT Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) won re-election with 797,865 votes — or 55.6 percent of all votes against his DPP rival Su Tseng-chang’s (蘇貞昌) 628,129 votes, while KMT Sinbei mayor-elect Eric Chu (朱立倫) garnered 1,115,536 votes — or 52.6 percent of the vote, beating DPP nominee Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) — who won 1,004,900 votes — by more than 110,000 votes.
Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) of the KMT claimed re-election, receiving 730,284 votes — or 51.12 percent of the vote, beating DPP candidate Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) — who received 698,358 votes — by only a little more than 30,000 votes.
In Greater Tainan, the DPP’s William Lai (賴清德), as widely expected, won a landslide victory over his KMT opponent, Kuo Tien-tsai (郭添財), by more than 200,000 votes.
GRAPHIC: TT
In Greater Kaohsiung, Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) of the DPP also scored an insurmountable lead over the KMT’s Huang Chao-shun’s (黃昭順) 319,171 votes and Kaohsiung County Commissioner Yang Chiu-hsing’s (楊秋興) 414,950 votes, who ran as an independent.
The CEC will hold a meeting to confirm the results for mayoral and city councilor elections on Friday and officially publicize the results that day. At a post-election press conference at KMT headquarters, KMT Secretary-General King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) acknowledged the number of overall votes the KMT received in the five cities, which fell behind the number of votes the DPP received, was a warning sign and he said the KMT would reflect upon the election result.
“Although we secured three cities in the elections, we fell behind the DPP when it comes to the overall votes. The KMT will take it as a warning sign and work harder to strive for better performance,” he said.
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King blamed Kaohsiung County Commissioner Yang Chiu-hsing (楊秋興), who ran the election as an independent candidate after withdrawing from the DPP in August, as the reason behind the party’s disappointing turnout, since Yang successfully attracted some swing voters in the Kaohsiung election.
President Ma Ying-jeou, who doubles as KMT chairman, did not attend the press conference. King said Ma asked all party members not to be proud or discouraged by the election results, and that they should persist in party reform.
Meanwhile, DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen acknowledged the poll results did not live up to expectations, but added the party would humbly accept the results.
GRAPHIC: TT
“We understand that it was a disappointment,” Tsai said. “At the same time, however, we still want to congratulate our candidates in Greater Tainan and Greater -Kaohsiung and we hope that they can bring their residents happiness in the future.”
“In the [other municipalities] … although the candidates lost, they did so with honor,” she added.
Despite the loss, the DPP did not announce a shake-up of senior officials, aside from the originally scheduled retirement of DPP -Secretary-General Wu Nai-jen (吳乃仁). Tsai is expected to continue to lead the party as it heads into the legislative elections next year.
“We have grown in these past two years, but we still face greater challenges ahead,” Tsai said. “But I will stay strong and confidently lead the DPP into the future.”
As for how the DPP failed to take at least three seats, originally hinted as a strong possibility prior to the vote, Wu said the party would need to undertake further analysis. It was too early, he said, to tell whether the shooting of Sean Lien (連勝文), son of former vice president Lien Chan (連戰), on Friday night had affected the popular vote.
“Taking a closer look at this incident will be hard,” he said.
However, regardless of the reason why, “I know that this time, the number of seats we took did not live up to everyone’s -expectations,” he said.
Key questions hanging over yesterday’s poll were the performances of Tsai and Su. The two are considered the DPP’s leading presidential candidates in 2012, and with an eye to that election, party members were looking to see who emerges from the voting in the stronger position.
Yesterday’s elections went forward in the shadow of unusual election-eve violence, marked by last-minute drama on Friday night when Sean Lien was shot and injured in a campaign rally in Taipei County. Sean Lien was hit in the face by a bullet in an incident that most local media have thus far attributed to gang violence.
Acts of violence are unusual in election campaigns in Taiwan, which began a gradual transition from a one-party dictatorship to fully functioning democracy in the late 1980s.
Violence by Taiwan’s gangs is also limited, though they exercise considerable political influence, particularly on county governments.
Additional reporting by staff writer and agencies
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