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Reading the tea leaves from Nov. 27
By Lin Cho-shui 林濁水
The election-eve shooting of Sean Lien (連勝文) notwithstanding, the Chinese
Nationalist Party (KMT) still lost the overall vote in the recent five special
municipality elections by about 400,000 votes.
Some people believe the shooting benefited the KMT in the north, and harmed the
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the south, but this was not borne out by a
Global Views Monthly magazine survey. Experience suggests the DPP generally does
better in elections than pre-election opinion polls say, but in these elections
the party performed slightly worse than the Global Views survey predicted. Su
Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), the DPP candidate for Taipei City, got 5.5 percentage points
less than forecast, while DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in Sinbei City, Su
Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) in Greater Taichung, William Lai (賴清德) in Greater Tainan and
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) in Greater Kaohsiung fell behind by 3.7 points,
0.5 points, 2.1 points and 2.8 points respectively.
Beijing will claim, as the government here has done, that the Taiwanese have
little to be unhappy about — this year’s economic growth rate is at a 20-year
high, possibly due to economic integration with China after the signing of the
Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA). During the election campaign,
the DPP avoided the issue of independence. Could it be because it realized that
discussing the current cross-strait situation would help the KMT? So, why did
the latter still lose the popular vote?
The two main parties may well have kept quiet about cross-strait issues, but
that didn’t stop it from being the dominant undercurrent in the elections.
The first reason for this is the high degree of cross-strait economic
integration. This, coupled with the hollowing out of industry in Taiwan as
manufacturers relocate to China, has meant unemployment and salary stagnation
here, and bigwigs getting positions in China while small stores in Taiwan watch
their business shrink. Consequently, the general public doesn’t see the actual
benefits of this GDP growth.
From 1991 to 2007, income from labor as a percentage of GDP fell from 51.4
percent to 44 percent. A drop of this magnitude has not been seen anywhere else
in the world. In the last three years, of the four Asian tigers, Taiwan and Hong
Kong have trailed Singapore and South Korea in average GDP growth and rate of
employment. Discernible in this undercurrent is a sea change in the political
topography in Taiwan.
The second reason was a function of the Taiwanese collective consciousness. When
the Asian Taekwondo Union’s (ATU) technical delegate Zhao Lei (趙磊), who happens
to be from China, spoke out against Taiwanese athlete Yang Shu-chun (楊淑君) in the
Asian Games in Guangzhou recently, the KMT thanked him, and this did
considerable damage to the pan-blue camp.
In these elections we saw the KMT having to deal with yet another crisis: the
significant weakening of local factions. In the past, even if the DPP won in
county commissioner or mayoral elections, the KMT still had an overwhelming
advantage in the county and city councilor elections.
Things were different this time around. In this election the votes were spread
38.6 percent to 35.34 percent, translating to 130 seats each. The KMT used to be
able to get at least 60 percent of the village chief seats: This time it was
able to secure less than a third of the seats and the overall vote. In another
link in the local factions network — the urban and rural townships and the
cities — these local factions have stayed away from the elections, leading to an
unprecedented crisis in the KMT’s core support.
Some say that this is because President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has not taken the
local factions seriously. Actually, the real culprit is social change. The KMT’s
rural factions rely on the farmers’ associations and irrigation associations,
while the urban ones look to associations affiliated to local communities and
clans for their support, and these organizations are losing influence.
Finally, the deciding factor in the three municipalities the KMT did win was the
Mainlander vote. Even this, however, has shown signs of dissipating, a process
that promises to continue as Taiwan and China become more economically
integrated and as trade links grow. Basically, we are seeing big changes in
Taiwan’s political landscape. Getting people out to vote has gone from the hands
of local factions made of the various trade associations, locally affiliated
organizations, friendship associations or ethnic groups. We have arrived at the
stage where people are voting on financial and social welfare policies, issues
that affect them. The trend is not good for the KMT in terms of its prospects
for the 2012 presidential elections. But that’s not to say it’s going to be
plain sailing for the DPP, either.
In the 2008 presidential elections, the DPP trailed the KMT by 15 percent of the
vote. Now it is 5 percent behind. It seems that the party’s efforts at making a
“soft break” with former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) have already started to
pay dividends.
It’s worth noting that this election was actually fought on two fronts. The KMT
has failed to notice the social tectonic movements that are reshaping its core
vote underneath its very feet, and it can no longer rely on a majority blue
vote. It is mistaken if it thinks the “deep blue” vote is enough to win an
election.
The DPP central command was reluctant to get caught up in this battle, but
candidates loyal to Chen on the margins of the party took up the fight. Talk
show host Lee Tao (李濤) and KMT Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) heavily criticized the
Chen family, especially Chen’s son, Chen Chih-chung (陳致中), who won a seat as an
independent city councilor for Greater Kaohiung. This criticism saw pre-election
tensions rise to record highs. The result was that Lee and Chiu ended up being
the biggest boost for Chen Chih-chung’s campaign, and he ended up surprising
everyone with how well he did.
Unfortunately this caused a certain amount of in-fighting within the DPP’s
ranks, helping the KMT nab Taichung. Indeed, it was only because of this that it
was able to win the three municipalities. It also meant that the Chen loyalists
managed to get a quarter of the DPP’s councilor seats, and remain a force to be
reckoned with. This led Chen himself to remark that the approach of going on the
offensive had been vindicated, and the party central command’s failure to do so
was the reason the DPP only managed to win two municipalities.
When you compare the outcomes of the 2008 presidential elections and the recent
municipality elections, it is quite clear who was right and who was wrong. That
doesn’t mean that Chen and his loyalists are going to admit that freely, for it
is not in their interests to do so. The DPP is going to have to find a way to
avoid internal conflict.
Both the DPP and the KMT have to tackle some difficult issues. The next
presidential election in 2012 is not all that far off and we will know very soon
which party can learn best from its mistakes and move on into the future.
Lin Cho-shui is a former Democratic Progressive Party
legislator.
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