With the pan-green vote-allocation strategy having been widely discussed and promoted over the past few days, the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) top strategists yesterday said that this approach needs to be implemented meticulously and precisely and has to take the local candidates' inclinations into consideration.
DPP Deputy Secretary-General Chung Chia-pin (
Chung said that the DPP would respect individual candidates' opinions and give local party branches the final say on whether to share votes with the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) nominees, as local branches have a better understanding of election conditions in their areas.
"We also prohibit our candidates from attacking the TSU nominees during campaigns," Chung said.
DPP Secretary-General Chang Chun-hsiung (
"The guideline for allocating votes is to maximize the legislative seats and create a win-win situation for both parties. Therefore, we will not force electoral districts which do not have adequate votes to take this approach," Chang said in response to reporters' questions.
According the DPP's latest poll, Chung said, the percentage of voters who believe that the pan-green camp will become the legislative majority is much higher than the percentage of voters who said that they will vote for the candidates nominated by the pan-green camp.
He declined to reveal the exact results of the poll.
"I think the current campaign climate is quite favorable to the pan-green camp at this point. The poll found that even the voters who are inclined to support the pan-blue camp are pessimistic about the pan-blue camp's chances. However, it also shows that the DPP still has room to win more new supporters," Chung said.
Meanwhile, Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), who is also a member of the Central Standing Committee, expressed a more positive attitude toward the vote-allocation strategy in two constituencies in his city, saying that a well-organized plan for the allocating votes will raise the local momentum, since what Taiwan lacks now is an atmosphere of solidarity.
This campaign approach might reignite people's faith and zeal in the elections, he said.
"According to my observation, what the people of Taiwan need right now is to be touched after many of them have become fed-up with endless disputes resulting from elections," Hsieh said.
"And I think voters might be moved by the vote allocation if they see people from different parties could forsake bias and unite to coordinate [their strategy]. We could give it a shot in Kaohsiung," he said.
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