Panelists attending a forum in Kaohsing earlier this week said they are not optimistic about the “third force” alliance’s electoral outlook in southern Taiwan, given its lack of integration.
The term “third force” refers to Taiwanese political parties that are unaligned to either the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) or the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
At the forum held to discuss issues relating to next year’s legislative elections, Citizen Congress Watch executive director Chang Hung-Lin (張宏林) said that third-force district legislator candidates face “a tough election” in southern Taiwan and he is “not optimistic” about their chances.
However, the third force commands enough party votes that it is likely to cross the legal threshold of 5 percent of total votes cast — between 500,000 and 600,000 votes — and win two legislators-at-large seats in the Legislative Yuan, Chang told the forum organized by Citizen Congress Watch.
Kaohsiung Civil Servant Citizen Watch president Chen Ming-pin (陳銘彬) said that next year’s polarized election and southern voter demography are bound to crowd out the electoral space of third-force candidates.
The DPP has become adept in riding popular anger at the KMT over Taiwan’s unbalanced economic development between the nation’s northern and southern regions, Chen Ming-pin said, allowing the DPP to capture and secure district seats.
Kaohsiung’s districts, for example, are controlled by the DPP and offer little room for the third force.
Although the Social Democratic Party and Taiwan Green Party have succeeded in forming an electoral coalition, the highly localized political environment of southern Taiwan continues to pose steep challenges to third-force candidates, Chen Ming-pin said.
Chen Ming-pin added that if the third force captures legislator-at-large seats next year, it might be able to put down deeper roots in the south through its legislators enabling it to become more competitive.
“There are no ‘third force,’ ‘pan-greens’ or pan-blues’ in Tainan; there are only local factions,” Democracy-Tainan founder Chiang Ming-tsung (江明宗) said, adding that candidates are effectively nominated by the factions.
Local-faction legislators traditionally attended to their constituencies’ every need, down to showing up at their weddings and funerals, Chiang said, adding the aging southern electorate is unlikely to respond well to efforts to change the culture.
“The ‘third force’ needs more time to cultivate its grassroots in the south,” he said.
Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages assistant professor Lee Yu-hsuan (李宇軒) said the third-force strategy correctly prioritizes winning the party votes for national legislators-at-large rather than competing on the district level.
Overall, Lee said he is pessimistic about the third force in the coming district elections, but optimistic about their potential for growth and action in the future, particularly because given time, the third force would be able to recruit from the many electable public figures from the south and change its northerner-dominated lineup of candidates.
Kaohsiung Normal University assistant professor Chen Jwu-shang (陳竹上) said that the absence of effective checks and balances was the direct cause of the Miaoli County Government’s fiscal collapse.
Chen Jwu-shang said that in lieu of the third force as a power to check the government’s excesses, the judicial branch, academics and the media would have to continue making the government accountable, or Miaoli would not be the last to fail.
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