The nine-month race for the nation’s presidency unofficially began on Wednesday, with academics and observers agreeing that China policy, the economy and voters in central Taiwan hold the key to victory.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) nominee Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) emerged as the winner of the party’s presidential primary on Wednesday, setting up a battle with President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for the nation’s top political office.
Academics see the election, which will be held in January, as “too close to call,” but said the two candidates’ policies toward China could determine the outcome.
Ma, who won his first term in a landslide victory in 2008 and has forged closer ties with China, reducing cross-Taiwan Strait tensions, is expected to take the initiative on the issue by attacking the DPP for its strong anti-China position, said Chen Chao-chien (陳朝建), a political scientist at Ming Chuan University.
Tsai, 54, has been “ambiguous” in previous comments on China policy and is expected to stick with that strategy because she does not want to “scare away” independent voters, who have had doubts about the party’s hawkish position in the past, Chen said.
Meanwhile, Tsai is expected to focus on the economy, an issue that Ma could find difficult given that unemployment, income inequality and inflation remain major concerns for many voters, despite booming trade with China, Chen said.
Another factor Chen said, was the decision to combine the presidential and legislative elections for the first time.
Combining the elections could favor the 60-year-old Ma, who also serves as KMT chairman, because legislative candidates will appeal to voters to cast ballots for themselves and Ma, Chen said.
However, Ma cannot expect as easy a victory as in 2008 when he won by more than 2 million votes, because Tsai is at least as popular — if not more popular than — Ma among urban residents, women and young people, voters considered to be strong Ma backers in the past.
With voters in northern Taiwan traditionally favoring the KMT and southern Taiwan strongly backing the DPP, election results in central Taiwan “will literally be the tie-breaker in the election,” Chen said.
Wang Yeh-li (王業立), a political scientist at National Taiwan University, agreed, adding that China policy and the economy would be the main issues during the presidential campaign.
Tsai managed to touch on her China policy during DPP primary’s presentations, but did not present policies indicating the direction in which she intended to take Taiwan, Wang said.
“She is not likely to be able to maintain her strategy of being studiously vague throughout the campaign,” he said.
While Tsai’s nomination as Taiwan’s first female presidential candidate was a milestone, Wang said that voters might not be ready for a female president.
Wang suspected that the combined election favored the KMT, noting that turnout at the past two legislative elections was 58 and 59 percent respectively, while turnout at presidential elections usually surpassed 80 percent.
The DPP will have to immediately tackle the challenge of uniting the party after Tsai’s narrow victory over former premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) in the party primary, which was determined by opinion polls.
Su said previously that he would not run on the vice presidential ticket with Tsai if he lost the primary, but called for supporters to back Tsai in his concession speech on Wednesday afternoon.
The DPP, recognizes that party unity is essential to win next year’s presidential race, and supporters are concerned that the Tsai campaign could suffer if it fails to garner support from Su and his backers.
DPP legislators have suggested that Su should run in the legislative elections and vie to become legislative speaker so that the party will be more competitive in the presidential and legislative races.
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