Throughout Taiwan’s electoral history, the political pendulum has usually swung from the party that holds the presidency after the second local election during its time in office, but that cycle appears to be shortening.
Then-Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) victory in the 2000 presidential election marked the nation’s first peaceful transition of power. The DPP’s popularity grew in the 2001 local elections before it went into a downward spiral near the end of Chen’s first term and hit rock bottom before the 2005 and 2006 local elections.
A similar trend could be seen during two terms of former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), who succeeded Chen in 2008. Ma led the KMT to victories in the 2010 local elections and the 2012 legislative and presidential elections, but the party lost control over nine cities and counties in the 2014 local elections.
There is no ambiguity about why the DPP and KMT lost public support in local elections during the second terms of Chen and Ma. Chen’s hardline cross-strait policy and his embroilment in a corruption scandal frustrated many Taiwanese, culminating in the two-month-long “red shirt” movement in 2006 calling for his resignation.
As for Ma, his China-leaning policies and lack of transparency in his dealings with Beijing caused public distrust to soar, pushing young people, who had been considered apolitical, to risk their future by staging an unprecedented 23-day occupation of the Legislative Yuan’s main chamber in 2014.
However, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who is only in her first term and is to face her first local elections on Saturday next week, is already showing signs of distress that are usually seen in a president’s second term. Pan-green analysts have predicted that the DPP could lose up to six cities and counties in the polls.
What went wrong? We know that Tsai’s popularity is dropping, but a close look at the possible causes shows that most are linked to reforms and changes that she has tried, or is trying, to bring to the nation.
When Tsai took office in 2016, her administration listed several thorny issues that few of her predecessors dared to tackle as priorities: transitional justice for White Terror victims and Aborigines, pension and judicial reforms and same-sex marriage.
Although the Tsai administration has turned some of the reform agendas into law, its methods and the speed at which it has handled certain issues has frustrated many supporters, some of whom might punish the party by not going to the polls or voting for another party.
Sensing the severity of the problem, Tsai, who doubles as DPP chairperson, appealed to supporters twice this week, begging them not to let forces opposed to reform re-emerge and regain power simply because they are not happy with the DPP.
No leader is perfect. At some point they are bound to disappoint and compromise on the beautiful future that they once painted for voters.
However, it is important that voters not let temporary frustration drive them into voting into office opponents of reform, who could easily nullify the efforts that the nation has made in recent years and set it back decades.
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