Elections confirm that New Party, TSU have area-bound support bases

With the New Party getting five seats in the Taipei City Council and none in Kaohsiung -- and the TSU getting two seats in Kaohsiung and none in Taipei -- political observers said the results proved that the TSU has little support in northern Taiwan and the New Party has the same problem in the south.

Wang Yeh-lih (王業立), a professor of political science at Tunghai University says this is the case because voter demographics are totally different in southern and northern Taiwan.

Most voters in northern Taiwan tend to be pan-blue-camp supporters, and most voters in southern Taiwan tend to support the pan-green camp.

"In the 2004 legislative election, it [the New Party] might receive support from Taipei City, Taipei County and Taoyuan County, but it would probably not receive support from southern Taiwan," Wang said.

Alarmed by its collapse in last year's legislative elections, in which the New Party won only one legislative seat -- Kinmen's -- and picked up only 0.44 percent of the vote, the party only nominated six candidates for the Taipei City councilor elections and just one in Kaohsiung.

The pro-unification party received 9.02 percent of the vote in Taipei and 0.63 percent of the vote in Kaohsiung. Its only candidate Saturday for the Kaohsiung City Council, Li Ying-sheng (李瀛生), received only 4,807 votes and lost.

Political commentators remarked that the party's nomination strategy was the main reason for its success in Taipei.

"We think our conservative strategy was right. We would do the same in the next legislative election. We believe that we could get at least eight seats in the Legislative Yuan," said Yu Mu-ming (郁慕明), the party's chairman.

Meanwhile, the TSU held a meeting yesterday to criticize itself for its poor showing. All six of the party's nominees for Taipei failed to be elected, while two of its six nominees for Kaohsiung City were elected.

"Despite the fact that the TSU didn't win any seats in Taipei, it still enjoys a little support there. The percentage of votes it received in Taipei is higher than in last year's legislative election," Wang said.

Wang said that most of the TSU's support still comes from southern Taiwan.

The TSU received 3.72 percent of the votes in Taipei and 3 percent in last year's legislative elections.

Chin Heng-wei (金恆煒), editor in chief of the Contemporary Monthly magazine, noted that, no matter how good the New Party's performance was in this election, party politics would remain the trend in Taiwan's politics.

He further predicted that the New Party might merge or closely cooperate with the KMT in the near future.

"Small parties' days are numbered. The New Party totally understands this reality after the 2001 legislature election, and I believe that it will soon merge with the KMT to avoid collapsing," Chin said.