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Government Information Office
March 22, 2008 Presidential Election and Referendums – PRESS KIT
Fact Sheet No. 8
Changes in Taiwan’s Political Landscape
In recent years in Taiwan—officially named the Republic of China—the “pan-blue” alliance of political parties—consisting most importantly of the Kuomintang (KMT), or Chinese Nationalist Party, and its smaller offshoots, the People First Party (PFP) and New Party (NP)—has, overall, made steady gains in elective offices at both national and local levels at the expense of the “pan-green” coalition, comprising the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and much smaller Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU). In some types of local elections, independents (IND) have done quite well, while politicians in the Non-Partisan Solidarity Union (NPSU) have managed to keep a foothold in the Legislature.
As the data below indicate, however, relatively small parties in both the pan-blue and pan-green camps have shrunk in significance, leaving the KMT and DPP, along with independents, as the only serious competitors.
Most broadly speaking, the pan-green and pan-blue camps are distinguishable from each other with respect to their hopes for the relationship between the Republic of China (popular name: Taiwan) and the People’s Republic of China (popular name: China):
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The pan-blue political parties espouse a “one-China” ideology that characterizes the ROC and PRC as temporarily separate, sovereign entities that should eventually be unified through mutual agreement, as in the case of the former two Germanys.
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The pan-green parties reject any “one-China” ideology. They assert that Taiwan and China are
two entirely different nations, and call for constitutional amendments to adopt the nation’s popular name as its official name and remove language that implies any claim to sovereignty over regions governed by China or Mongolia.
The growing dominance of the KMT in particular in representative bodies can be seen in the results of the 2005 three-in-one elections, the 2006 elections for Taipei and Kaohsiung mayors and city council members, and the 2008 elections for the Seventh Legislative Yuan.
2005 three-in-one elections
On December 3, 2005, 66% of eligible voters went to the polls in three kinds of elections. The numbers of winners for each political affiliation, and gains (↑) or losses (↓) compared with the previous election, were as follows:
The number of KMT county magistrates and mayors increased by 56%, while the number of races won by the DPP dropped by 33%. The DPP’s victories were concentrated in southwestern Taiwan, while the pan-blue parties dominated in the rest of the nation.
Although the DPP and TSU made significant gains, with a combined 32% increase in seats, this was at the expense of independents, not the pan-blue, as the KMT also made gains which more than offset PFP losses and maintained its overwhelming dominance.
While KMT and PFP candidates fared poorly in comparison with the 2002 elections, both pan-blues and independents performed markedly better than the DPP overall.
2006 elections for Taipei and Kaohsiung
mayors and city council members
On December 9, 2006, elections were held for the mayors and city council members of the “special municipalities” of Taipei and Kaohsiung, the nation’s two largest cities.
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Taipei mayoral election results (percentage of votes)
KMT Hau Lung-bin 53.8
DPP Hsieh Chang-ting 40.9
PFP James Soong 4.1
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Kaohsiung mayoral election results (percentage of votes)
DPP Chen Chu 49.4
KMT Huang Chun-ying 49.3
Sizeable portions of the budgets of special municipalities are allocated by the central government, and their mayors are also ex-officio members of the Cabinet. Previously, the two mayors were appointed by the premier, and were first popularly elected in 1994.
Interestingly, although Taipei is a pan-blue stronghold, the first popularly elected mayor was the DPP’s Chen Shui-bian, the sitting president; and while Kaohsiung is a pan-green stronghold, its first popularly elected mayor, from 1994 to1998, was the KMT’s Wu Den-yih, who had served as the appointed mayor from 1990-1994.
The current DPP contender for the presidency, Hsieh Chang-ting (Frank Hsieh) is most highly reputed for his performance as Kaohsiung’s second popularly elected mayor, although he later served as premier and previously had been a vice presidential candidate. Similarly, the KMT candidate for president, Ma Ying-jeou, came into the political limelight as two-term Taipei mayor after defeating Chen Shui-bian in the 1998 mayoral race. Chen Chu, who won the Kaohsiung mayoralty by a slim margin, is the first woman to be elected mayor of a special municipality.
Elections for the cities’ council members were held in tandem with the mayoral elections. Compared with the previous elections on December 7, 2002, the KMT made sizeable gains while other pan-blue parties suffered losses. The DPP made small gains in both city councils, but the pan-green as a whole is at a disadvantage in both councils.
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Taipei City Council election balloting (52 seats total)
KMT 24 (↑4) NP 4 (↓1) PFP–2 (↓6)
DPP 18 (↑1) TSU 2 (↑2)
IND 2 (unchanged)
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Kaohsiung City Council election balloting (44 seats total)
KMT 17 (↑5) PFP 4 (↓3)
DPP 15 (↑1) TSU 1 (↓1)
IND 7 (↓2)
2008 elections for the Seventh Legislative Yuan
Through constitutional amendments made in 2005, the number of seats in the Legislative Yuan has been halved from 225 to 113, the tenure of legislators extended from 3 to 4 years, and a single-member-district, two-ballot electoral system instituted for legislative elections.
In the new legislative electoral system, similar to the “mixed-member proportional” systems employed in Germany and Japan, voters cast one ballot for a candidate to represent their local district (73 seats total) or indigenous people’s constituency (6 seats total), and a second ballot for a political party, as the basis for apportioning at-large seats (34 total) to parties that have nominated at-large candidates.
As for district seats, under the old multimember-district system, the percentage of legislative seats won by parties more closely reflected the percentage of ballots cast for them, and smaller-party candidates had a better chance of being elected in districts where, for example, the top five or six vote-getters were all elected even though the fifth- and sixth-place candidates garnered only a small percentage of the votes. Under the new “winner-take-all” single-member-district arrangement, by contrast, the proportion of seats won by a party in district contests may be dramatically more or less than the proportion of ballots it garnered. (See the
Attachment for a more detailed comparison of the old and new legislative electoral systems.)
In the elections for the Seventh Legislative Yuan held on January 12, 2008, the opposition KMT won a landslide victory, capturing 72% of the seats, including 78% of district seats, 66% of indigenous constituency seats, and 59% of at-large seats. Corresponding figures for the DPP, respectively, were 24%, 18%, zero%, and 41%.
Number of seats won in the 2008 legislative elections (113 seats total)
KMT: 81 (57 district / 4 aboriginal constituency / 20 at-large)
PFP: 1 (aboriginal constituency)
DPP: 27 (13 district / 14 at-large)
NPSU: 3 (2 district / 1 aboriginal constituency)
IND: 1 (district)
Overall, 58.5% of eligible voters cast valid ballots in the elections for district and indigenous constituency seats, 58.28% for at-large seats. One of the most eye-catching outcomes is that the KMT won 78% of the 73 district seats with 53.5% of total votes for district legislators, while the DPP won less than 18% of the seats though winning 38.2% of total district contest votes.
Realizing their dim chances of winning district seats, smaller parties (those other than the KMT and DPP) focused on vying for the 34 at-large seats. They collectively won only 12% of the ballots cast for political parties, and none of them were allotted at-large seats, as no small party reached the constitutionally mandated threshold of 5% of the total ballots cast for political parties. All 34 seats, therefore, were split between the KMT and DPP—respectively 20 seats (59% of at-large seats based on 51% of party ballots) and 14 seats (41% of at-large seats based on 37% of party ballots). The NP and TSU were in third and fourth place, with 4% and 3.5% of the party ballots, respectively.
Practical consequences of the pan-blues’ combined 72.6% of seats in the Seventh Legislative Yuan include the ability to pass a presidential recall resolution and, with the cooperation of 3 of the 4 NPSU and independent legislators, the ability to pass a constitutional amendment resolution. (To become legally binding, both types of resolution must be ratified through referendum.)
In the previous legislative election for 225 seats under the old system in 2004, the DPP was the biggest winner, with 89 seats (up 2 from 2001), compared with the KMT’s 79 (up 11), the PFP’s 34 (down 12), the TSU’s 12 (down 1), the newly established NPSU’s 6, the NP’s 1 (unchanged), and 4 seats for independents. Combined, however, the pan-blue coalition commanded a majority of 114 seats in the Sixth Legislative Yuan.
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