The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) will not enjoy a comfortable victory unless it wins at least three seats in next month’s special municipality elections and secures more votes than the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), DPP Secretary-General Wu Nai-jen (吳乃仁) said.
Wu made the remarks in an interview on Thursday, adding that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) did not have to worry about becoming a lame-duck president if the DPP wins the elections since the KMT still controls the executive and legislative branches.
“Victory for the DPP signifies an opportunity to challenge Ma in the 2012 presidential election,” he said.
Photo: Lu Chun-wei, Taipei Times
While much attention has focused on whether DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) would step down should her party lose the elections, Wu said he thought it was strange, because nobody had asked whether Ma would quit his position as KMT chairman should his party lose next month’s polls.
Saying that he had watched a TV talk show in which KMT members asked Tsai to make clear on her position on the matter, Wu said he was curious to know why the KMT members were so curious about whether the DPP chairperson would quit her job if the DPP loses when Ma had never said whether he would step down should the KMT lose the elections.
That said, Wu noted it was a DPP tradition that the party boss stepped down in the event of an election defeat.
Wu said his definition of a defeat would be that the DPP ends up with fewer mayoral posts than it has now (the DPP currently holds both Tainan and Kaohsiung) and garners fewer votes than the KMT.
Although he would not see it as a defeat if the DPP won only two mayoralties and gathered more votes than the KMT, he said he understood that many people would be very disappointed with such a scenario and might -consider it a defeat.
“The party’s main goal is to -perform better than it is now,” Wu said.
Wu said he did not think it would be difficult to get more votes than the KMT, but added that a complete victory was not guaranteed unless the DPP collected more votes than the KMT and won at least three seats.
“Next month’s elections will be an important battle for the DPP and Taiwan’s democratic development,” he added.
Saying that many people were unhappy with the performance of the KMT despite its majority in government and legislative dominance, Wu said: “They want to see a strong opposition put the ruling party in check.”
Assessing the races in Taipei and Sinbei (as Taipei County will be called following its upgrade in December), Wu said they are still too close to call. Many believe the DPP stands a better chance of winning in Taipei City, mainly because Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) of the KMT has too many problems, Wu said.
Wu said that the electoral -structure in Taipei was not in the DPP’s favor, since former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and his running mate Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) lost by 270,000 votes to their KMT opponents in the 2004 presidential election in Taipei, and by 130,000 in Taipei County.
As to whether Sinbei would prove decisive, Wu said it would depend on the next 15 to 20 days, adding that a decisive battle could also be in Greater Taichung, where the gap between the DPP mayoral candidate Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) and his KMT opponent, Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強), is narrowing quickly.
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