The Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) failure to defeat the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in Saturday's Kaohsiung mayoral election has prompted the party to reexamine its election strategies and party policies.
While a number of party legislators have voiced their frustration, lamenting the party's poor performance in Kaohsiung, and urged the party to place more emphasis on promoting localization, KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
Political analysts warned that the prospects of Ma leading the party to defeat the DPP in the 2008 presidential election could be slim if he and the party continued to refuse to acknowledge the KMT's problem of acceptability among southern voters and instead blamed its failure on the DPP.
"Ma Ying-jeou is the biggest loser in the elections. To win in Kaohsiung, it's crucial to integrate local factions. Ma said he spared no efforts in campaigning, but his so-called effort was to shake hands with the residents. It's ridiculous," said Shih Cheng-feng (施正鋒), a public administration professor at Tamkang University.
Compared to the DPP, a party that has dominated Kaohsiung and southern Taiwan for years even after being involved in a string of corruption scandals, the KMT has failed to reform its long-term image of corruption and appeal to the strong local consciousness among southern residents, Shih said.
"As the KMT still couldn't rid itself of its image as a corrupt party under Ma's chairmanship, the party wasn't able to defeat the DPP by focusing its campaign on the corruption scandals surrounding the DPP," he added.
The KMT had defined the Taipei and Kaohsiung mayoral elections as a confidence vote on President Chen Shui-bin (陳水扁) and hoped to dislodge the DPP from its stronghold in Kaohsiung by capitalizing on the slew of corruption scandals surrounding Chen.
However, DPP candidate Chen Chu (
Yang Tai-shun (
"All the voters heard were the corruption scandals involving the DPP, but they knew nothing about Huang Chun-ying and how his election would bring a better future for Kaohsiung," Yang said.
Despite the barrage of criticism over the party's election strategy, Ma insisted that it was the right strategy to attack the DPP's corruption. He attributed the Kaohsiung election result to the DPP's groundless accusations against Huang on the eve of the polls.
"We lost the Kaohsiung election by a razor-thin margin, and the opponent won the election because of a vicious strategy," Ma said on Saturday night after the elections.
"Our efforts in Kaohsiung are not wasted," he added.
While apologizing for "failing to meet supporters' expectations" after a KMT post-election meeting, Ma refused to admit that the party has a problematic strategy in Kaohsiung.
"If the strategy was all wrong, we wouldn't have received almost half of the votes," he said.
Failing to defeat a DPP embroiled in multiple troubles was nonetheless a frustration to the KMT and a serious setback for Ma, said Wang Yeh-lih (王業立), a political scientist at Tunghai University.
"Ma's leadership will be questioned, and he may have to compromise in choosing his partner in the 2008 presidential election in order to please the southern residents," he said.
In addition to being more "localized," Shih suggested that Ma should work on his relationship with former KMT chairman Lien Chan (
"Integrating different voices in the party is Ma's job. But he thought he could rule the party without Lien and Wang ... I don't think he is reflecting properly on his and the party's strategy judging from his reaction to the elections," Shih said.
Beijing could eventually see a full amphibious invasion of Taiwan as the only "prudent" way to bring about unification, the US Department of Defense said in a newly released annual report to Congress. The Pentagon's "Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2025," was in many ways similar to last year’s report but reorganized the analysis of the options China has to take over Taiwan. Generally, according to the report, Chinese leaders view the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) capabilities for a Taiwan campaign as improving, but they remain uncertain about its readiness to successfully seize
Taiwan is getting a day off on Christmas for the first time in 25 years. The change comes after opposition parties passed a law earlier this year to add or restore five public holidays, including Constitution Day, which falls on today, Dec. 25. The day marks the 1947 adoption of the constitution of the Republic of China, as the government in Taipei is formally known. Back then the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) governed China from Nanjing. When the KMT, now an opposition party in Taiwan, passed the legislation on holidays, it said that they would help “commemorate the history of national development.” That
Taiwan has overtaken South Korea this year in per capita income for the first time in 23 years, IMF data showed. Per capita income is a nation’s GDP divided by the total population, used to compare average wealth levels across countries. Taiwan also beat Japan this year on per capita income, after surpassing it for the first time last year, US magazine Newsweek reported yesterday. Across Asia, Taiwan ranked fourth for per capita income at US$37,827 this year due to sustained economic growth, the report said. In the top three spots were Singapore, Macau and Hong Kong, it said. South
Police today said they are stepping up patrols throughout the Taipei MRT system, after a social media user threatened to detonate a bomb at an unspecified station this afternoon. Although they strongly believe the threat to be unsubstantiated, Taipei Metro police and the Railway Police Bureau still said that security and patrols would be heightened through the system. Many copycat messages have been posted since Friday’s stabbing attacks at Taipei Main Station and near Zhongshan MRT Station that left three dead and 11 injured, police said. Last night, a Threads user in a post said they would detonate a bomb on the Taipei
RSS