Voter turnout for Saturday’s presidential election was the lowest of the six direct presidential elections since 1996, data compiled by the Central Election Commission showed.
Voter turnout in the election was 66.27 percent, compared with 76.04 percent in 1996, 82.7 percent in 2000, 80.28 percent in 2004, 76.33 percent in 2008 and 74.38 percent in 2012, the commission said.
The figures were released alongside the commission’s announcement late on Saturday that Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) had won the election.
Photo: CNA
Tsai and her running mate, Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁), received 6.89 million votes, or 56.12 percent of total valid votes, commission Chairman Liu Yi-chou (劉義周) said.
Tsai defeated Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫), who garnered 31.04 percent of the total vote, and People First Party (PFP) candidate James Soong (宋楚瑜), who received 12.84 percent of the vote.
In the legislative race, the DPP won 68 seats out of 113, up from 40 in the previous election four years ago, to give it an absolute majority in the legislature for the first time.
The KMT won 35 seats, sharply down from 64 in the previous election, the commission said.
The New Power Party (NPP) won five seats to become the third-largest party in the Legislative Yuan, followed by the PFP with three seats, the Non-Partisan Solidarity Union with one seat and an independent with the final seat.
The commission said voter turnout in single-member legislative constituency races was 66.58 percent, and 66.25 percent for the political party vote that determined the distribution of legislators-at-large.
Turnout was 57.66 percent for the vote for Aboriginal representatives in mountainous areas and 51.72 percent for the vote for Aboriginal representatives in low-lying areas.
Meanwhile, the commission said that five political parties that have each garnered more than 3.5 percent of the total number of votes cast in legislative elections are eligible to collect NT$50 per vote annually over the next four years, in accordance with the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法).
The New Party, which garnered 4.18 percent of the vote, would also receive subsidies, although it will not hold any legislator-at-large seats.
A record 18 political parties competed in the legislative election and four of them — the DPP, KMT, PFP and NPP — received more than 5 percent of the total votes, making them eligible to be allocated legislator-at-large seats and to receive the election subsidy, commission statistics showed.
It is calculated that the DPP would receive NT$268.54 million (US$7.94 million) each year, given that it garnered more than 5.37 million votes in the legislative election, while the KMT can claim NT$164.04 million and the PFP NT$39.74 million.
The NPP would be eligible to receive NT$37.21 million per year and the New Party NT$25.5 million.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS