Long considered a stronghold of the pan-blue camp, the north of Taiwan lived up to its reputation last night with the blues winning half a million more ballots than the greens.
In Taipei City, the pan-blue camp received 56.53 percent of the vote while the pan-green camp received 43.47 percent.
Analysts said that the referendum topic had helped the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) steal some votes from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the People First Party (PFP).
PHOTO: CHEN TSE-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
"The DPP successfully pushed the presidential election to a higher level by throwing in the referendum issue. Voters in Taipei City are more aware of the issue of the future of Taiwan," said Liu Chin-hsin (劉進興), an engineering professor at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology.
Ku Chung-hwa (顧忠華), a sociology professor at National Chengchi University, said, however, that the pan-blue's 313 Rally in Taipei City allowed middle-class residents to vent their anger.
"To me, the 313 Rally was a rally of angry bourgeoisie," Ku said.
Ku said that President Chen Shui-bian's (
"Because Chen lost the Taipei City mayoral election to Ma Ying-jeou (
In 1998's mayoral election, Ma won 51.1 percent of the vote while Chen won 45.9 percent.
In Taipei County, the pan-greens received 46.94 percent of the total presidential vote, while the pan-blue ticket won 53.06 percent. This result was something of a curate's egg for the DPP.
Taipei County Commissioner Su Tseng-chang (
Although the pan-green camp's turnout in the presidential election was not as impressive as in the commissioner election, Chen performed much better in Taipei County than in 2000.
In 2000, Chen only won 39.11 percent of total vote in Taipei County, while this time he won close to 47 percent.
The pan-green camp had canvassed hard in the Hakka regions -- Taoyuan County, Hsinchu city and county and Miaoli County -- by setting up a Hakka TV station, promoting the Hakka language in public schools and boosting tourism.
Although in this election, the pan-blue camp still won over half of the total ballots in these regions, the DPP's tactics somewhat succeeded in winning over the Hakka population as the percentage of votes received by Chen increased this time around.
Overall, Ku felt that the DPP's win had rekindled hope for Taiwan.
"It is a clear sign of a new Taiwanese ideology, with the old ideology of the KMT being consigned to history's garbage bin," Ku said.
The northern regions of Taiwan consist of eight counties and cities: Taipei City, Taipei County, Keelung City, Ilan County, Taoyuan County, Hsinchu County, Hsinchu City and Miaoli County. The region has 7.5 million eligible voters.
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