Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) decision to run in the year-end special municipality elections signifies a generational change for the party, but also raises doubts about the DPP’s chances in the 2012 presidential election.
The London School of Economics and Political Science-educated chairperson, 54, announced her intention to contest the Sinbei mayoral election on May 23, the same day she won the party chairmanship election with more than 90 percent of the vote.
Lai I-chung (賴怡忠), a researcher at Taiwan Thinktank, said Tsai’s entry indicates that the DPP is ready to embrace a new generation of politicians because her leadership over the last two years has been relatively successful in winning back voters with a different approach. However, he also pointed out problems raised by Tsai’s bid.
PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
“As party chair and a candidate at the same time, Tsai will inevitably face the issue of the distribution of resources between five electoral districts,” he said.
The DPP will also need to look for a coordinator for the crucial elections.
“Win or lose, Tsai will have to resign her post as the DPP chair at the end of the year, which means we will be looking at a new DPP chairperson in 2011,” Lai said.
“Tsai entered the [mayoral] election to keep the momentum going,” said Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政), a political scientist at Soochow University, referring to a string of DPP victories in legislative by-elections since 2008.
“It also showed that the party wanted to make sure it is able to win at least three out of five mayoral elections ... if that happens, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) could be a lame duck sooner than expected,” Lo said.
The special municipality elections will take place on Nov. 27 in Taipei City and Sinbei City as well as Greater Tainan, Greater Taichung and Greater Kaohsiung. More than 60 percent of the population lives in those areas, accounting for about 60 percent of the national budget.
Lo said that both Tsai and the DPP are probably not thinking about the 2012 presidential election at the moment. Winning only four of 17 county magistrate elections last year, the DPP needs a big win in the five special municipality elections to have any chance of victory in 2012.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) politicians, however, still believe that Tsai has an eye on the presidential office. KMT Legislator Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) said that both Tsai and Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) — the DPP’s candidate in Taipei City — still aspire to the presidency and could use a “play to lose” strategy so they can run in 2012.
Lai urged Tsai and Su to serve for the full term if they win and “let the future decide who will be the DPP’s candidate in the 2012 presidential election.”
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