Voting Shift in the November 2014 Local Elections in Taiwan

Abstract

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)Strong rebuke to Ma Ying-jeou's government and policies and landslide victory for the DPP.On 29 November 2014, Taiwan held the largest series of local elections in its history, in a nine-in-one format combining polls for 11,130 positions, ranging from mayors of municipalities and cities (zhixiashi/shizhang...), county magistrates (xianzhang ...), city and county councillors (shi/xian yihuiyuan ?/????), township chiefs (zhenzhang ??, xiangzhang ??), and village and borough chiefs (cunzhang ??, lizhang ??), to indigenous district chiefs and councillors (zhixiashi shandi yuanzhumin quzhang, qumin daibiao??????????, ?? ??). All were elected for four-year terms. Two-and-a-half years into the second presidential term of Ma Ying-jeou, the nation-wide elections were seen as a mid-term test for his administration and a prelude to the next legislative and presidential elections in early 2016.(1)The big prizes consisted of the six special municipalities of Taipei, New Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, Kaohsiung, and, for the first time, Taoyuan. They represent around 70% of Taiwan's 18.5 million registered voters, with the other 30% distributed among 16 counties and cities of smaller size or more rural character.Before the vote, four municipalities (Taipei, New Taipei, Taichung, and Taoyuan) and 12 counties and cities were held by the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) or its Blue camp allies, with a virtual monopoly over central and northern Taiwan, and only Ilan on the north-east coast being led by the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The DPP mostly ruled in the south, heading the two municipalities of Tainan and Kaohsiung, along with Yunlin, Chiayi, and Pingtung counties. Due to media concentration and the national pre-eminence of the candidates, coverage of the electoral campaigning largely concentrated on the capital Taipei, where KMT candidate Sean Lien Sheng-wen ???, son of the former prime minister, vice-president, and KMT chairman Lien Chan ??, opposed the independent candidate Ko Wen-je ? ? ? , a National Taiwan University Hospital surgeon supported by the DPP; and on the central city of Taichung, where KMT mayor Jason Hu Chih-chiang ... attempted to win a fourth term against DPP legislator Lin Chia-lung ....The DPP and its Green camp ally, the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU Taiwan tuanjie lianmeng ...), mainly campaigned on the strength of local governance - its mayors repeatedly winning top positions based on popularity and local government quality in public opinion surveys - and on support for a renewed grass-roots and democratic spirit on the heels of the Sunflower Movement of last spring. But it also surfed on the low approval rate of Ma and the KMT, rising social and economic inequality, and widespread anger over government corruption and housing prices. In the Blue camp, the high level of popular discontent toward the KMT administration and the way the country has been ruled, and the tepid results of its main policies, including its trumpeted cross-strait economic and political rapprochement, left the KMT candidates with few national or local policy achievements to run with. In many cases, Ma was seen as so politically toxic that candidates declined to stand with him on a public stage. In a desperate attempt, Lien Sheng-wen and the KMT tried to nationalise and polarise the campaign into a classic Blue-Green battle around cross-strait relations and identity, pushing the "save the Republic of China (ROC)" card to rally deepBlue voters and prop up their campaign. It had the mostly opposite result of showing even more clearly the disconnect between today's mainstream national Taiwanese identity and the KMT mainlander old guard such as former premiers Hau Pei-tsun ??? and Lien Chan, aggravated by repeated vulgarities and expression of contempt and racism from the latter toward native Taiwanese. (2)Overall election resultsElection turnout was 67. …