Poll Defeat a 'Slap in The Face' For Taiwan's Ruling Party

A resounding defeat of Taiwan's ruling Kuomintang (KMT) Nationalist party in local and city elections last weekend is in part a backlash against the government's refusal to take seriously the demands of student protesters who occupied the island's parliament last March, analysts said this week.

The results have sparked the resignation of Premier Jiang Yi-huah and of President Ma Ying-jeou as chairman of KMT, which lost key cities in northern and central Taiwan in the polls.

Ma, who is halfway through his second and final four-year term as president, will formally submit his resignation Wednesday at a meeting of the KMT's Central Standing Committee, the party said in a statement Tuesday.

In the aftermath of the KMT's defeat at the polls, Taiwan's political commentators have been taking stock of what had been closer ties with rival mainland China under the Ma administration.

Since his election in 2008, Ma has ushered in a boom in tourism from the communist mainland, following decades of mutual suspicion and, at times, outright hostility.

But his handling of the "Sunflower Movement," which protested a trade and services pact with Beijing, appears to have boosted public anxiety over allowing Taiwan's former enemies to get too close.

The KMT's support has also been eroded by slowing economic growth, unpopular educational reforms and food safety standards, and the weekend's poll, which saw the KMT defeated in both major mayoral seats—Taipei and bellwether Taichung—sends that message loud and clear, commentators said.

The KMT took 40.7 percent of the ballots cast in the local polls, while the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) took 47.5 percent of total votes.

Overall, 67.5 percent of Taiwan's 18 million voters turned out for Saturday's poll, which saw 11,130 seats up for grabs across the island.

The KMT now controls just one major municipality, and lost more than half of its other city and county seats.

DPP-backed independent candidate Ko Wen-je became mayor of Taipei, a post that has previously been held by all of Taiwan's directly elected presidents.

The results are being widely interpreted as a "no-confidence" vote, and a slap in the face, aimed at the Ma administration.

Cross-strait effect

Taiwan often plays host to Chinese dissidents and has provided a long-term home to two of the dissident leaders of the 1989 student democracy protests at Tiananmen Square, Wang Dan and Wu’er Kaixi.

Wang Dan told a news conference this week that the election results are also likely to be making Beijing very nervous.

"The Chinese government must be panicking right now, because now they have no way to connect with Taiwan," Wang said. "Before, the KMT was willing to relate to them ... but now the KMT's popular standing is so low."

"They might try to establish links with the DPP, but the DPP is very cautious about any ties with Beijing. If they allow it to go too far, they will just turn into another KMT," he said.

Wu'er Kaixi, who announced Monday that he would stand in by-elections for Taiwan's parliament early next year, said that his bid would demonstrate to Beijing the changing political climate on the island.

“[Beijing's ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)] sees me as a wanted criminal, an enemy," he told RFA on Tuesday.

"If I run for a position as a public servant in Taiwan, regardless if I win or lose, the meaning is extraordinary. It shows to the CCP what the Taiwanese people want and how different the values are between the CCP and the Taiwanese."

Ku Chung-hua, director of the online New School for Democracy, said Taiwan politics is now witnessing a "butterfly effect" from the Sunflower Movement that will force a rethink in both pan-blue, pro-KMT, and pan-green, pro-DPP, camps.

"Now that young people have made their mark [with the occupation of parliament in March], all the parties will have to work to attract more young people," Ku said.

"The KMT has been gradually alienating young voters, one by one, as well as the middle-class vote. Does it only want the votes of the elite? How many will it have left?"

He said the results of Saturday's elections showed that the Ma administration had lost touch with the voice of the people.

"Their politics hasn't just left the people cold; it eventually created a backlash against them, and this has been reflected ultimately in the polls."

Ku said the student-led movement in March had been crucial in stimulating a fresh debate about how citizens can influence government policy.

Tseng Chien-yuen, a professor of government at Chunghua University, agreed, saying that the DPP had benefited greatly from the Sunflower Movement, which occupied the island's Legislative Yuan for three weeks in protest at a proposed trade deal with Beijing they said would leave Taiwan dangerously open to influence from the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

"The people who voted DPP this time weren't necessarily their supporters, nor did they necessarily agree with all of their policies," Tseng said.

"There were people commenting online that the DPP had cashed in through no merit of its own," he said.

"Maybe the DPP itself doesn't even know where those votes came from," he said.

'Taiwanization'

A former Sunflower movement protester known by his online nickname, "Conscience of Macau," said a government that responds to the concerns of its citizens with violence will have problems in a properly functioning democracy.

"The people can punish them at the ballot box," he said. "Our demands weren't responded to during the Sunflower movement, and the elections gave people a peaceful way of getting rid of the people we didn't like, six months later."

And Taiwan author Ping Lu said that Beijing is now very worried about the potential "Taiwanization" of Hong Kong and Macau, following two months of the pro-democracy Occupy Central movement in Hong Kong.

Taiwan and mainland China have been governed separately since the KMT government fled there after losing a civil war to Mao Zedong's Soviet-backed communists on the mainland in 1949.

Beijing regards the island as a renegade province awaiting reunification, and has blocked its participation on the international stage and threatened it with military force, should its government declare independence.

Once governed by a Stalinist ruling party which suppressed dissent and ruled every aspect of daily life, including running major business conglomerates and state-run industries, Taiwan has enjoyed full democracy since President Lee Teng-hui, who steered the KMT through key political reforms, was directly elected in 1996.

But many, including the protesters who occupied parliamentary buildings last March, fear that Beijing will use closer economic ties to spread political influence in Taiwan, exerting a "chilling" effect on the island's political life via its business interests on the mainland.

Reuters reported last week that the Chinese Communist Party's "United Work Front" ideological body, which has long been covertly active in Hong Kong, is now engaged in a "concerted campaign" to assimilate Taiwan politically without a shot being fired.

Reported by Hsia Hsiao-hwa for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated by Luisetta Mudie and Feng Xiaoming. Written in English by Luisetta Mudie.