Public split on politicians' affairs

Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘), another three-term DPP legislator, has been accused of maintaining an extramarital relationship for 17 years and has a illegitimate 4-year-old daughter, which his colleagues call an open secret.

Politicians involved in sex scandals usually have little problem surviving multi-seat elections such as those for the legislature, in which they only need to appeal to a small group of loyal voters. However they may feel the impact of such a scandal in a presidential or mayoral race.

In these single-seat elections, candidates usually need to attract neutral voters who have no specific political affiliation and tend to make a last-minute decision as to which candidate to support.

As shown in a Power News poll in February 2000 -- one month before the presidential poll -- 24 percent of the people had not decided on which presidential candidate to vote for. For these people, a main criterion for them was the candidate's character, according to the survey.

Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉), who served as Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) campaign strategist for his 1994 and 1998 Taipei mayoral bids, said campaign publicity, either positive or negative, often only impacts those who are undecided and whose voting behavior is subject to change.

"The target of campaign publicity is not those whose support you already have nor those who will never support you. In other words, the scope may be narrowed to the median voters," Luo said.

A victim of this kind of negative publicity is former Kaohsiung mayor Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), who lost the mayoralty to the DPP's Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) in 1998 by only 5,000 votes.

Wu believes that allegations of his having an affair were one of the many factors responsible for his defeat. The allegations were backed up by a taped conversation between Wu and the alleged mistress, which the Kaohsiung District Court later determined determined to have been faked.

"Justice has been upheld, though it is delayed," Wu said.