Residents in southern counties yesterday used their ballots to show that the region continues to be a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) stronghold.
Pan-blue supporters, however, vowed to support their leaders' call to re-examine the result.
The result was a strong showing for the DPP all the way from Yunlin County to Changhwa County. More than 55 percent of those who cast ballots in the south backed the DPP's candidates, President Chen Shui-bian (
PHOTO: LIU WAN-CHUN, TAIPEI TIMES
In Kaohsiung City, widely regarded as a DPP stronghold, thousands of pan-green supporters waved flags and banners outside the party's Kaohsiung chapter, shouting "get elected" in Hoklo, commonly referred to as Taiwanese.
Diehard green-camp supporters responded enthusiastically to the vote figures as they came in.
The crowd's cheers mixed with the noise of fireworks and air horns.
Civic achievements
Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh (
"People's support for the DPP can be attributed to political achievements in the city," Hsieh said.
More than 50 percent of those who cast ballots in Kaohsiung, over 500,000 people, voted for Chen.
The pan-blue camp won about 398,000 votes.
Deputy Mayor Lin Yun-chien (
"After such keen competition, we need to stay calm to preserve our democratic result," Lin said.
He said this was necessary to avoid a political crisis stemming from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan's (
However, Lin Shiang-nung (
Lin Shiang-nung said three blue-camp supporters found that their ballots were missing when they went to a polling station in the Sanmin District. Several minutes after being told there were no ballots for them, election staff produced the ballots.
"We Kaohsiung supporters will support our candidate Lien Chan's appeal," Lin Shiang-nung said.
In Kaohsiung County, the base of Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
According to Hsu Yung-ming (
"In addition, the shooting incident aroused support for DPP," Hsu said on a TV talk show.
In Chen's hometown, Hsichuang Village, Kuantien Township, Tainan County, 599 out of 699 eligible voters supported the DPP.
Kuantien residents celebrated the victory at about 7pm.
For the county as a whole, the DPP won 421,927 votes and the blue camp 229,284.
Yunlin county
In Yunlin County, one of the poorest rural areas in Taiwan and governed by independent Commissioner Chang Jung-wei (張榮味) of the pan-blue camp, about 60 percent of voters threw their support behind the DPP. The DPP won 243,129 votes compared with the KMT-PFP alliance's 159,906.
In Chiayi County, the DPP gained 81,000 more votes than the blue camp.
In Pingtung County, the DPP won 299,321 votes and the blue camp 215,796.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift