The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) will have to secure 700,000 votes more than the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the south to win the presidential election next month, a senior aide in the DPP’s campaign team said.
The forecast reflected the nation’s basic electoral map, in which the DPP is dominant in the south and the KMT controls the north and east. Central Taiwan is a toss-up, said the aide, who wished to remain anonymous.
If DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) fails to win by more than 700,000 votes in the counties south of Yunlin — Yunlin, Chiayi and Pingtung counties, Greater Tainan and Greater Kaohsiung — “we are toast,” the aide said.
Photo: CNA
For the DPP, the outcome of the election comes down to whether the party can make up a losing margin in the north with its advantage in the south, “then we’ll try to do as well as we can in central Taiwan,” the aide said.
Further breaking down the Tsai campaign’s minimum goals in the south, the aide said the party would like to win Yunlin County by 90,000 votes, Chiayi and Pingting counties by 80,000, Greater Tainan by 210,000 and Greater Kaohsiung by 200,000.
The so-called “blue north and green south” phenomenon has seen both major political parties adopt almost the same philosophy by trying to increase their lead in their strongholds while losing less votes in regions where they have fewer supporters, the aide said.
Campaigning for Tsai yesterday at a rally in Chiayi, DPP Legislator Chen Ming-wen (陳明文) said that the election is a north-south battle and supporters have to “help the DPP win big in the south to make up for its losses in the north.”
The DPP hopes that it will at least do better than it did in last year’s mayoral elections, when Tsai lost in New Taipei City (新北市) by about 100,000 votes and former premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) lost in Taipei by 170,000 votes.
“Our intelligence shows that the KMT has set an ambitious goal to beat us in Taipei and New Taipei City by 500,000 votes,” the aide said.
In terms of central Taiwan, which is expected to be the key battleground of the election, Tsai’s goal has been modest — she would like to break even in the region formerly known as Taichung City and to poll slightly better than the KMT in the region formerly known as Taichung County and in Changhua County.
The DPP expects to lose in the mountainous county of Nantou, the birthplace of Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) — President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) running mate.
“However, the losing margin could be small because Wu is not as popular in Nantou as some people think,” the aide said.
It will be very difficult for Tsai to win the Hakka constituencies of Miaoli, Hsinchu and Taoyuan, traditional strongholds of the KMT, the aide said, but the DPP has made headway in those regions and it will definitely fare much better than four years ago.
Among the Hakka-populated counties, Taoyuan is a “wild card,” where neither the DPP nor the KMT can predict voting behavior because of People First Party Chairman James Soong’s (宋楚瑜) late entry as the third candidate.
The aide estimated that Soong, who is expected to make the election more complex in Hakka and Aboriginal constituencies, would be able to win as many as 600,000 votes.
Barring the impact of KMT vote buying, the aide said he was “very optimistic” about Tsai’s chances in the election.
However, “the KMT will certainly leverage its party assets and place a lot of ‘resources’ in local districts,” the aide said.
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
UNREASONABLE SURVEILLANCE: A camera targeted on an road by a neighbor captured a man’s habitual unsignaled turn into home, netting him dozens of tickets The Taichung High Administrative Court has canceled all 45 tickets given to a man for failing to use a turn signal while driving, as it considered long-term surveillance of his privacy more problematic than the traffic violations. The man, surnamed Tseng (曾), lives in Changhua County and was reported 45 times within a month for failing to signal while driving when he turned into the alley where his residence is. The reports were filed by his neighbor, who set up security cameras that constantly monitored not only the alley but also the door and yard of Tseng’s house. The surveillance occurred from July
TRADE-OFF: Beijing seeks to trade a bowl of tempura for a Chinese delicacy, an official said, while another said its promises were attempts to interfere in the polls The government must carefully consider the national security implications of building a bridge connecting Kinmen County and Xiamen, China, the Public Construction Commission (PCC) said yesterday. PCC Commissioner Derek Chen (陳金德), who is also a minister without portfolio, made the remarks in a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, after Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Hsu Fu-kuei (徐富癸) asked about China’s proposal of new infrastructure projects to further connect Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties with Xiamen. China unveiled the bridge plan, along with nine other policies for Taiwan, on Sunday, the last day of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun’s (鄭麗文) visit
RSS