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Campaign Special ( The Vanquished ) - How the blue camp lost the election

By Jewel Huang
STAFF REPORTER
Sunday, Mar 21, 2004, Page 17

KMT Chairman Lien Chan, middle, tells supporters last night that he would go to court to have the election result declared invalid. PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) yesterday once again lost the presidential election. Academics said their second failure hinged on the ticket's neglect of the mainstream voice of the people of Taiwan and lack of self-reflection after its previous failure.

Although Lien and Soong have not taken the defeat lightly and claimed the result of the presidential election was invalid, their loss could be traced from the very first day that they decided to work together to again mount a challenge for the presidency.

After Lien and Soong, who were foes in the 2000 presidential election, in April last year announced their collaboration to contend for the presidency, their support exceeded 60 percent at one point. Their ticket took the lead from the beginning of the election campaign, which made the KMT-PFP alliance believe that they will win an easy victory as Lien and Soong's total ballots exceeded the number with which President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) won four years ago.

"The pan-blue camp was not sharp nor creative enough."

Chiang Ming-chin, professor of public administration at Taipei University

But Lien and Soong seemed to be too optimistic about the election and overestimated the sum of their possible ballots, said Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明), an assistant research fellow with the Institute of Social Sciences at Academia Sinica.

"In fact, the real loyal voters for Lien and Soong were only those who had voted for Soong in 2000, which was about 36 percent of the total votes at that time," Hsu said.

Hsu pointed out that the KMT-PFP alliance and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) both targeted the ballots that Lien collected in 2000, which was about 20 percent of the total votes.

"The ticket who wins 10 percent of votes from Lien, would win the election," he said.

Hsu said the alliance's misjudgment of the number of possible votes led the KMT-PFP alliance to dream up unsuccessful campaign strategies.

The pan-blue camp's unclear campaign theme was one of its feet of clay, said Chiang Ming-chin (江岷欽), professor of public administration at Taipei University.

"Compared to the DPP's campaign appeal to "Believe in Taiwan, persist in reforms," the KMT-PFP alliance seemed to fail to find an insistent tone since the campaign started," Chiang said.

"Almost all the campaign issues were handled by the pan-green camp, including the referendum and the creation of a new constitution. The pan-blue camp was not sharp nor creative enough in this aspect," Chiang said.

The DPP's landslide victory in Taichung County can be ascribed to the contradictions between the KMT and PFP and a long conflict between them. When it comes to integrating the local power for campaigning purposes, this will be more apparent in the legislative election to be held at the end of the year, Hsu said.

Hsu pointed out that people also worried that the conflict of interests between the two parties would lead the nation to chaos.

Besides, the power succession issue in the KMT has never been really settled, which made the middle generation of the KMT's political figures feel trapped and uncertain about their future development. They were reluctant to give all their efforts to campaign for Lien and Soong.

Throughout the whole campaign, the KMT-PFP alliance tried to score points with Chen's unimpressive performance in the nation's economy, educational reform and improving the employment rate, and it had launched sophisticated nationwide strategies to reinforce the idea that Chen was incompetent for his office.

Although the pan-blue camp's so-called "anti-bian (反扁)" strategies were quite successful judging by the number of ballots it won, Chiang said that, on the other hand, the pan-blue camp failed to promise different approaches to managing the economy that could have persuaded voters.

Knowing it was going to be a tight election, the KMT-PFP alliance has leveled accusations of corruption and put too much emphasis on negative campaigning, Hsu said.

"Lien might have picked up many votes with the help of former Tuntex Group chairman Chen Yu-hao (陳由豪)," Hsu said. Chen Yu-hao alleged that the first family received donations from his companies in the past three months.

At the same time, the alliance did not convince voters that they could root out the "black gold" in their parties, wasting the opportunity to highlight its image of reform, Hsu said.

Hsu also believed that another factor that made Lien and Soong lose the election was that they advocated that voters reject the referendum.

"The pair refused to take a position on the referendum because it was the platforms of the pan-green camp," Hsu said.

"On the contrary, they came out solidly against the referendum, which obviously deviated from the mainstream of public opinion," he said.

Hsu said the strong boycott of the referendum by the pan-blue camp caused the referendum not to be passed and ruined them at the same time.

The pan-blue camp also failed to make the voters believe that it is sincere in fully supporting and nourishing Taiwan's identity, Hsu said.

Hsu said the KMT lawmakers who support localization will definitely say goodbye to the party after this election, because they realize that the KMT was not moving according to the nation's wishes.
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