Page 1 of 2 Taiwanese voters call for
compromise By Craig Meer
TAIPEI - Voters in the Taipei and
Kaohsiung mayoral elections on Saturday returned
the same parties to power in each municipality,
and in doing so sent a nuanced message to all
Taiwanese politicians that the people want more
compromise and less hubris from their political
leadership.
The elections were seen by
many as a referendum on the scandal-ridden
administration of Democratic Progressive Party
(DPP) President Chen Shui-bian, but equally they
served as a
reality check for an
increasingly obstructionist and "winner take all"
opposition.
In Taipei, opposition
Kuomintang (KMT) candidate Hau Lung-bin with
53.81% of votes cast defeated Frank Hsieh from the
ruling DPP with 40.89%. James Soong, chairman of
another opposition - the People First Party (PFP)
- took a miserly 4.14% of the ballot, far below
expectations. Soong declared his intention to quit
politics for good after the results were
announced.
KMT strategists had feared that
Soong's participation in the race would split the
so-called "pan-blue" voter base in Taipei. The PFP
and KMT are erstwhile allies, drawing their
support from Taiwanese voters who lean toward
closer political and economic ties with the
People's Republic of China, Taiwan's sibling rival
and principal strategic competitor.
In
Kaohsiung, the DPP's Chen Chu, who had 49.41% of
votes cast, defeated KMT candidate Huang Jun-ying
with 49.27% - a razor-thin difference of just
1,120 votes, and a result that Huang may yet
contest. Lo Chih-ming, mayoral candidate for the
Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), barely featured in
the race with 0.86% of ballots cast, or just 6,599
votes.
The TSU and DPP are political
allies under the "pan-green" banner, and draw the
bulk of their electoral support from voters who
favor independence from China.
The mayoral
elections were run alongside city-council ballots
for the two municipalities. The pan-blue parties
won a convincing majority in the Taipei city
council, with 30 seats out of 52. In Kaohsiung,
neither of the two colored blocs attained a clear
majority. From a total of 44 seats, the pan-blues
took 21, while the pan-greens took 16 -
independent candidates hold the balance of power
with seven seats. Overall, very little changed in
the configuration of the city councils since the
2002 election.
The KMT's convincing win in
Taipei with the non-descript, if well-connected,
Hau Lung-bin (whose father is a former premier)
was attributable in large measure to the
corruption scandals that have surrounded President
Chen and his family since the start of this year.
The performance of seasoned DPP politician Frank
Hsieh (previously Kaohsiung mayor and then the
premier) was widely interpreted as solid against
this backdrop, and possible grounds for a
presidential nomination in 2008.
The DPP
was on shaky ground before the scandals gained
currency in March, losing a core of electoral
support to the pan-blue parties in county and
township elections at the end of 2005. But the
allegations of corruption that culminated in the
indictment of first lady Wu Shu-jen at the start
of November turned a bad situation for the ruling
party into a near-desperate one in the island's
capital.
On November 3, the Taiwan High
Court "black gold" anti-corruption unit under the
direction of Chief Prosecutor Eric Chen indicted
Wu on embezzlement, forgery and perjury charges
related to use of a Presidential Office special
expense fund. Investigators allege that President
Chen committed a similar list of offenses, but
under Taiwan's constitution he is immune from
criminal prosecution until he leaves office.
Chen's political capacity to complete his
full term - due to end in May 2008 - would have
been in doubt had it not been for the ruling
party's stronger showing in Kaohsiung. In the
southern city, the pan-blue voter base was much
less mobilized than in the capital, which in
September and October witnessed "depose Chen"
rallies organized by former DPP chairman Shih
Ming-teh.
The KMT's electoral chances in
Kaohsiung were further diminished by the
individual personalities of the mayoral
candidates. The KMT's Huang, while widely seen as
experienced and clean (Huang was a deputy mayor in
a previous KMT administration in Kaohsiung),
proved no match for the charisma
