Split tickets not always best
In the legislative elections in 2020, the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) number of regional legislative seats increased, but the DPP only won 33.9 percent of the total party votes for the legislators-at-large, which was similar to that of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) despite the KMT’s defeat in the regional legislative elections at that time.
The reason for this was that many voters who supported the pro-local regime voted for the DPP in the regional legislative elections, while casting their party votes to small parties with the same ideologies through split-ticket voting.
I cast my party votes for the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) in 2008 and 2012, the New Power Party (NPP) in 2016 and the Taiwan Statebuilding Party (TSP) in 2020. The TSU and TSP failed to cross the 5 percent threshold to have any legislator-at-large in 2008 and 2020 respectively.
For the upcoming legislative elections, former KMT presidential candidate Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) is on top of the KMT’s nomination list for legislators-at-large, and he has been eyeing the legislative speaker’s seat. Some other nominees on the list include former Tainan City councilor Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介), who claims to embrace the Republic of China (ROC), but was once reluctant to wave an ROC flag at a 2019 campaign rally in Tainan, as well as the second-generation members of several questionable political families who try to portray a clean image. Plus, since the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) is likely to have more legislators-at-large this time, the TPP has been bragging about itself lately. Under such circumstances, I have decided to cast my party vote for the DPP, instead of voting for a split ticket.
For Taiwan’s legislature, there should be representative figures for the weak such as Jing Chuan Child Safety Foundation CEO Lin Yue-chin (林月琴), who is on top of the DPP’s nomination list, and political warriors such as assistant professor of civil engineering Wang Yi-chuan (王義川), who are able to refute Han, Hsieh and the TPP’s nominees for legislators-at-large like Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌). As long as the voters could focus their party votes on the DPP, even though Wang is in the 14th spot on the party’s nomination list and not within the first 12 nominees, also known as the “safe list,” he could still become a “safe” candidate.
Yi He-hsuan
Tainan
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