The nine-in-one local election results would bolster the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), but are unlikely to have a major effect on the 2024 presidential election, when cross-strait issues are back in focus, political commentators said.
In Saturday’s elections, the KMT won 13 of the 21 cities and counties up for grabs, including four of the country’s six biggest metropolitan areas, where nearly 70 percent of the population lives.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lost three of the seven cities and counties it held, although it gained Penghu County. Its poor results prompted President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to announce her resignation as party chairpersom.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
Yoshiyuki Ogasawara, a professor at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies who correctly predicted that the DPP would win only five municipalities, told the Asahi Shimbun newspaper that the ruling party had chosen the wrong Taipei and Taoyuan mayoral candidates, and was unsuccessful in playing up the China issue before the election.
Ogasawara said he viewed it as a sign of the “maturity” of Taiwan’s democracy that voters are able to compartmentalize their thinking about local and national elections.
For this reason, the KMT’s win is unlikely to have a major impact on 2024, he said.
Kharis Templeman, a research fellow at US think tank the Hoover Institution, said that the KMT benefited from structural advantages in the local elections, such as the majority of cities and counties being more pro-KMT than the national average, and from having several popular incumbents on the ballot.
There might also have been “some fatigue” among the electorate regarding the DPP, particularly in terms of the candidates it put forward, he said.
While the KMT must craft a different message for its national election campaign, Saturday’s results showed that the party “has a future in Taiwan politics and [will probably] be competitive in 2024,” Templeman said.
Shelley Rigger, a professor of East Asian Politics at Davidson College in North Carolina, said that while the elections had a local focus, they showed that the KMT “has not been eliminated as a competitive player” in Taiwan’s politics, and should not be counted out in 2024.
If the KMT is to be competitive, it needs to continue working to overcome its portrayal as a “Beijing-leaning” party in the local media, she said.
“They need to finish adjusting their message to align with the mainstream Taiwanese preference for the status quo,” Rigger said.
Robert Tsao (曹興誠), founder and former chairman of contract chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp (聯電), yesterday wrote on Facebook that the local election results send a message to the world that Taiwan would compromise with and try to appease the Chinese Communist Party, “which is worrying.”
However, Wang Dan (王丹), a prominent student leader in the 1989 democracy movement in Beijing, said that the DPP’s major setback in the elections did not mean that voters were supporting the KMT or ditching the government’s “counter-Beijing” strategy.
There had been claims on the Internet prior to Saturday’s elections that voters wanted to “teach the DPP a lesson,” Wang said.
“I would say that voters should always teach any ruling party a lesson with their ballots, but I don’t think the outcome of Saturday elections means Taiwanese voters now prefer the KMT over the DPP,” Wang said.
Chen Shih-min (陳世民), an associate professor of political science at National Taiwan University, said many young voters did not vote.
This had a negative effect on the DPP’s fortunes, but the issue of Taiwan’s sovereignty, on which the DPP generally has a higher approval rating, did not play a deciding factor at the polls, which revolved around economic problems, Chen said.
Lin Tzu-li (林子立), an associate professor of political science at Tunghai University agreed, saying that voters in local elections care mostly about economic issues and their livelihoods, and COVID-19 had dealt a heavy blow to the service sector, in which a large number of people are employed.
TAIWAN PROTECTION MEASURE: US Army General Charles Flynn would not say where in the Asia-Pacific the missiles would be sent, but only that they would arrive in 2024 The US is to send medium-range missiles including the Standard Missile 6 (SM-6) and Tomahawk to the Asia-Pacific next year to deter a Chinese attack on Taiwan, US military news Web site Defense One reported. The report cited comments US Army General Charles Flynn made during the annual Halifax International Security Forum on Nov. 19. “We have tested them and we have a battery or two of them today,” Flynn was quoted as saying. “In [20]24. We intend to deploy that system in your region. I’m not going to say where and when. But I will just say that we will
LOYALTY: The 10 active and retired soldiers betrayed the nation and its people by leaking and passing on military secrets to China, the High Prosecutors’ Office said Ten former and current military officers were yesterday indicted on charges of spying for China, including two who allegedly filmed themselves pledging loyalty to Beijing. The High Prosecutors’ Office requested life imprisonment for the suspects in light of the severity of the crime. The 10 active-duty and retired officers included members of the 601st Brigade of the Aviation Special Forces comprising attack helicopter squadrons and elite combat units in charge of defending northern Taiwan, including Taipei. The other suspects came from Huadong Defense Command, in charge of defending the eastern coast; Kinmen Defense Command, in charge of defending Kinmen and Matsu; and one
NO FREE LUNCH: Taiwanese joining the trips to China met TAO and United Front Work officials who urged them to vote for candidates who support closer ties with Beijing The Ciaotou Prosecutors’ Office in Kaohsiung yesterday released two suspects on bail who have been accused of recruiting Taiwanese to join tours to China funded by Beijing and in which they were urged to vote for pan-blue candidates in January’s presidential and legislative elections. The pan-blue camp generally refers to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the People First Party, the New Party and the Young China Party, which support closer relations with China. Prosecutors said that a man, surnamed Cheng (鄭), and a woman, surnamed Yeh (葉), who are members of the China Pan-Blue Association, recruited Taiwanese tourists to join tours arranged
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus yesterday slammed a proposal by New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, to permit a “significant number” of Chinese students to study and work in Taiwan, saying it would be detrimental to young Taiwanese. At an event on Monday hosted by nine major industrial and business groups, Hou said that if elected, he would reinitiate cross-strait dialogue on the premise that Taiwan’s dignity would not be compromised and that the talks would be held in good faith. The talks would include lifting a ban on Chinese tour groups and
RSS