The results of the by-election for Hualien County commissioner had those in the upper echelons of the KMT and PFP breathing a sigh of relief after days of strenuous campaigning for their joint nominee Hsieh Shen-shan (謝深山).
The electoral victory scored by Hsieh last night illustrated not only that Hualien County -- as it has been for the past five decades -- is a KMT stronghold, but also gave a-boost to the KMT-PFP alliance.
Hsieh won a total of 73,710 votes, more than the combined total of DPP candidate You Ying-lung's (
Several factors contributed to Hsieh's landslide victory, said political analysts.
"One of the major factors contributing to Hsieh's electoral win was that the pan-blue camp successful played up its tactical voting strategy," said Ger Yeong-kuang (葛永光), a professor of political science at National Taiwan University.
Although various public opinion pollsters before the election had pointed to Hsieh as the victor, the alliance camp had been wary that Hsieh could be undone by support for KMT renegade Wu -- given the fact that both Hsieh and Wu's voter bases overlapped -- as they battled it out for Hualien's traditional pan-blue support.
As a result, the Hsieh camp resorted to the "save-dump" strategy, appealing to supporters to "dump Wu to save Hsieh."
One day before voting was to take place, the Hsieh camp made a last-minute effort to win such strategic voting by running a letter on the front page of major Chinese-language newspapers. The Letter appealed to Hualien residents not to waste their votes on Wu.
The letter, addressed to Wu and pan-blue supporters, said, "Given various poll results, Wu's chances of electoral victory are small. One vote for Wu means one step toward helping the pan-green camp."
"While the letter itself may have helped give the final push in swaying votes from Wu to Hsieh, the fact that the tactical voting could play out successfully was mainly due to the all-out effort by KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
Minister of the Interior Yu Cheng-hsien's (余政憲) order to have sentries at 24-hour checkpoints on the county's major roads and intersections to crack down on election bribery had worked against You, Ger added.
"The overt presence of a large number of police officers made locals feel insecure," said Ger, referring to the more than 400 police officers dispatched by Yu's ministry in the run-up to the election.
Those 400 police from other counties were in addition to a total of 1,277 local policemen assigned to anti-vote-buying duties.
"Yu's order angered the Hualien people and as a result of that, in part drove those undecided voters away from the DPP's You to Hsieh," Ger said.
Chin Heng-wei (
Hualien has been a KMT stronghold for half a century. No non-KMT candidate has ever won the commissioner's seat.
"The by-election result showed that Hualien's traditional party preference has not faded," Chin said.
Indeed, as early as noon yesterday, fervent supporters of Hsieh had already started to pour in to his campaign headquarters with their eyes glued to the on-site TVs showing the latest votes counts from the by-election.
Loud applause and cheers erupted here and there as the results showed their candidate leading.
Encouraged by the fact that Hsieh steadily led the vote-counts shown on TV, an excited die-hard pan-blue supporter even called out that "the pan-blue camp's presidential bid next year will be successful for sure!"
Only one hour and a half after polls closed at 4pm, firecrackers were already lit at Hsieh's campaign headquarters celebrating his victory.
Moments later, Hsieh made his victory speech from his campaign headquarters, expressing gratitude to his supporters as a crowd cheered and loud music was played in celebration.
"This victory is very meaningful," Hsieh said. "It means that Hualien's people have recognized my determination to serve Hualien, endorsed my vision for Hualien and shown their high expectations for Hualien County in the next two years."
"The most important of all, is that the victory symbolizes that cooperation between the KMT and the PFP is destined for success and victory," he said.
Pledging that he would work to let Hualien voters know that their votes for him have not been in vain, Hsieh told the cheering crowd that he would carry on late KMT commissioner Chang Fu-hsing's (
Since the by-election has been largely perceived as a crucial test of the KMT-PFP Alliance's ability to cooperate in elections ahead of the presidential vote next March, Hsieh's victorious election result also benefited both Lien and Soong.
The pan-blue win in the by-election had also proven that Soong, who scored high support and votes from this eastern county in his maverick run in the 2000 presidential election, still has influence among the Hualien populace, Chin said.
"Hsieh's electoral victory has both men breathing easily, whom otherwise would have to confront mounting pressure and questions from within their parties on the formation of the alliance between the two," Chin said.
Ger added that Hsieh's victory had done more than just energize the KMT-PFP alliance and its confident outlook toward next year's presidential election.
"Throughout the course of the by-election -- during which the DPP played all its cards campaigning for its candidate -- the pan-blue camp also got an opportunity to preview what kind of campaign strategy the DPP may use in the 2004 presidential election," Ger said.
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