The decade-long political advantage of the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has come to an end, National Tsing Hua University honorary chair professor Yoshiyuki Ogasawara said on Saturday.
Referring to the mass recall campaign mostly targeting Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and an opposition-backed referendum on restarting the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County, Ogasawara said that the “summer battle” ended with “a major defeat for the DPP and a major victory for the opposition parties.”
The losses bring to an end the DPP’s relative advantage from 2014 to last year, the political scientist wrote in Japanese on Facebook.
Photo: Hung Mei-hsiu, Taipei Times
During that period, the DPP won all three presidential elections (in 2016, 2020 and last year) and control of the legislature twice (in 2016 and 2020).
Ogasawara said the DPP must reconstruct its core narratives of “resisting China and safeguarding Taiwan” and creating a “nuclear-free homeland.”
However, the opposition parties “cannot rely only on being anti-DPP,” he said, as that alone might not bring about a transfer of power.
Saturday’s referendum, initiated by the Taiwan People’s Party and supported by the KMT, asked voters whether they wanted to restart the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant, which was shut down in May. The DPP opposed the measure.
The referendum resulted in more than 4.34 million votes in favor (74.2 percent of participating voters), against more than 1.51 million votes against (25.8 percent). However, the votes in favor failed to meet 25 percent threshold of registered voters, or about 5 million votes, needed to pass.
Turnout was 29.5 percent, down from 41.1 percent in the 2021 referendums, when four questions were put to voters.
Recall elections against seven KMT lawmakers all failed by relatively wide margins.
Overall turnout in the seven districts was 49.3 percent, compared with 56.1 percent turnout for last month’s recall elections against 24 KMT lawmakers, figures that could be interpreted as showing a decline in the willingness of DPP supporters to vote, Ogasawara said.
The outcome of Saturday’s recalls had already been decided on July 24, when the first wave of recalls failed, he said.
The referendum vote showed that an “overwhelming majority” of Taiwanese would like the ruling party to change its “nuclear-free homeland” stance, he said.
Opposition to nuclear energy was stronger in the 2010s, but has weakened in the past few years due to high electricity demand from the semiconductor industry, delays in renewable energy and increased reliance on thermal power, he said.
Concerns over environmental and corruption issues surrounding solar panels further raised public unease, he added.
Ogasawara has been “researching Taiwanese politics for more than 30 years and has accurately predicted the results of Taiwan’s general elections several times,” National Tsing Hua University’s Web site says.
The manufacture of the remaining 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks Taiwan purchased from the US has recently been completed, and they are expected to be delivered within the next one to two months, a source said yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense is arranging cargo ships to transport the tanks to Taiwan as soon as possible, said the source, who is familiar with the matter. The estimated arrival time ranges from late this month to early next month, the source said. The 28 Abrams tanks make up the third and final batch of a total of 108 tanks, valued at about NT$40.5 billion
Two Taiwanese prosecutors were questioned by Chinese security personnel at their hotel during a trip to China’s Henan Province this month, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. The officers had personal information on the prosecutors, including “when they were assigned to their posts, their work locations and job titles,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said. On top of asking about their agencies and positions, the officers also questioned the prosecutors about the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement, a pact that serves as the framework for Taiwan-China cooperation on combating crime and providing judicial assistance, Liang
A group from the Taiwanese Designers in Australia association yesterday represented Taiwan at the Midsumma Pride March in Melbourne. The march, held in the St. Kilda suburb, is the city’s largest LGBTQIA+ parade and the flagship event of the annual Midsumma Festival. It attracted more than 45,000 spectators who supported the 400 groups and 10,000 marchers that participated this year, the association said. Taiwanese Designers said they organized a team to march for Taiwan this year, joining politicians, government agencies, professionals and community organizations in showing support for LGBTQIA+ people and diverse communities. As the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex
MOTIVES QUESTIONED The PLA considers Xi’s policies toward Taiwan to be driven by personal considerations rather than military assessment, the Epoch Times reports Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) latest purge of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership might have been prompted by the military’s opposition to plans of invading Taiwan, the Epoch Times said. The Chinese military opposes waging war against Taiwan by a large consensus, putting it at odds with Xi’s vision, the Falun Gong-affiliated daily said in a report on Thursday, citing anonymous sources with insight into the PLA’s inner workings. The opposition is not the opinion of a few generals, but a widely shared view among the PLA cadre, the Epoch Times cited them as saying. “Chinese forces know full well that
RSS