"A victory for the Republic of China..."
The results are in for Taiwan's 6th Legislative Yuan Elections...
The pan-green led government has managed only to elect 101 seats, well short of the 113 needed for a parliamentary majority.
The pan-blue led opposition has garnered around 114 seats, plus 2 blue leaning non-party members, which means that they will control the Legislative Yuan for another three years and most likely check and block attempts by President Chen to bring the country closer toward "independence." Chen's term ends in 2008. He has pledged to rewrite the nation's constitution in 2006.
"A victory for the Republic of China," declared chairman Lien of the opposition-led Kuomintang. Lien has been a leader of the pan-blue coalition despite two consecutive presidential election defeats. This latest victory will likely indicate a consolidation of Lien's support base for the time being.
Some interesting points: Voter turnout was at an all time low (59.1%) despite excellent weather throughout the day. Either the pan-green supporters were overconfident and stayed at home, or a high degree of backlash, marked by voting fatigue, cyncism, long-term ideological tirades and a disaffected electorate has finally brought a message home to the government---stop campaigning and get some real things done for a change.
What to watch for:
1) Will the emboldened KMT still push through much needed reforms after steaing this show from the jaws of defeat?
2) Is President Chen really a lame duck president now? Will the DPP cooperate with the opposition and heal the wounds of a divided nation?
We'll be watching.
posted by writeronthewall @ 21:15
1 comments
1 Comments:
Hey, I like the new theme... much slicker ;)
Regarding the election, agree with most of your analysis. The DPP swung too far away from the center in the last few weeks of campaigning which probably alienated a lot of the moderate voters. If you look at the results the more extreme parties such as the PFP and TSU lost seats to independents and more moderate KMT candidates. Clearly, the majority of the general public doesn't want drastic changes at this point in time.
I think we're just seeing the natural progression of both parties towards the new center. My guess is by 2008 we'll see the DPP and KMT as the large moderate parties (assuming the KMT implements much needed reforms), with the TSU and PFP becoming increasingly marginalized.
At any rate, it seems that the DPP is accepting the defeat so we won't see a rerun of March. Time to move back to the task of life as usual (or as close to normal as one can get in Taiwan these days ;) )
- Loren
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