E-Notes

Taiwan Legislative Election
Green Camp Gains in December 1 Polls, Blue Team Changes Hue

by Shelley Rigger

December 28, 2001

Shelly Rigger is the Brown Assistant Professor of East Asian Politics, Davidson College. She participated in FPRI’s December 17, 2001 conference on “China and Varieties of Sovereignty: Implications and Opportunities for the Cross-Strait Relationship.”

Taiwan’s political landscape was redecorated in shades of green and blue in the December 1 legislative election. The Green camp includes President Chen Shui-bian’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and its allies, primarily the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) assembled by former president Lee Teng-hui. On the conservative side of the political spectrum lies the Blue team, including the island’s long-time ruling party, the Kuomintang (KMT), along with two KMT spin-offs, James Soong’s People First Party (PFP) and the New Party (NP).

The election results boosted the political influence of the Greens, raising their share of legislative seats from 66 to 100 and bringing President Chen’s forces within striking distance of a majority in the 225-seat legislature. At the same time, voters shifted the balance of power within the “Pan-Blue Alliance” from the KMT and NP— which saw their seat shares fall precipitously— toward the fledgling PFP. The PFP more than doubled its seat share, growing from 20 to 46, while the KMT’s delegation dropped from 110 seats to 68, and the NP’s fell from 8 to 1.

The legislative election is worth analyzing, both as an indicator of Taiwan’s political direction under President Chen, and as a harbinger of things to come.

What Happened?

To understand the sources of the Greens’ success— and particularly the 30 percent increase in the DPP’s seat share— we need to consider two dimensions. First, there was a small shift in vote shares suggestive of a modest voter realignment. Second, the fact that this limited change in vote shares created a disproportionate shift in power toward the Green camp underlines differences in the two camps’ organizational strength.

	 Seat Share	 Vote Share
	1998  2001* 2002**  1998  2001

  KMT 123  110  68  46.4  31.3

  DPP 70  66  87  29.6  36.6

  NP  11	8	1  7.1  2.9

  PFP 20  46	 20.3

  TSU 13	 8.5

  Other 21  21  10  16.8  .45

* Reflects defections and realignments between the 1998 and 2001 elections.
** Shows results of 12/1/01 elections./p>

As the table shows, Taiwan’s political parties experienced significant, but modest, changes in their vote share from the 1998 legislative election to 2001. The KMT’s vote share dropped from 46 percent to 31 percent, but the Blue camp as a whole saw its share increase slightly from 53 to 54 percent. The DPP, for its part, saw its vote share increase from 30 percent to almost 37 percent, while the TSU’s votes boosted the Greens to 45 percent. (The big losers in this election were the independent candidates, who won nearly 17 percent of the vote in 1998. Their ideology ranged across the spectrum; they cannot be categorized.)

These results lead to two important conclusions. First, the level of support for conservative candidates among Taiwan’s voters is fairly stable; a small majority consistently choose candidates linked to parties that represent the political status quo, both domestically and in terms of cross-strait relations. Still, even though the overall performance of the Blue camp is consistent with past trends, the shift of votes and seats from the KMT and NP to the PFP is important. For one thing, the PFP appears to have replaced the New Party as the party of choice for the most conservative voters. Although the PFP lacks a clear program and ideology, its mainlander leader lends it a unification-friendly image. At the same time, its success in mobilizing grassroots political factions in northern and central Taiwan makes it a strong electoral contender, which inspired cross-over voting from the New Party in this election. Meanwhile, even if the PFP and KMT’s grassroots supporters might favor an alliance between the two conservative parties, the ambitions of their leaders make such a move unlikely.

Second, while the DPP’s own vote share is consistent with its performance in past elections (although it is slightly higher than the party’s average performance in legislative races), the rise of the TSU suggests that Green sympathies either have increased or were hidden within the Blue camp in past elections. In fact, because the TSU is the brainchild of Lee Teng-hui, a former KMT chairman, the latter interpretation is most likely. Overall, parties that advocate political reform and a more Taiwan-centric outlook have the support of around 45 percent of the electorate. (While the Green camp includes pro-independence individuals, as a group, it does not support active efforts to secure de jure independence. Nor does the Blue camp— which contains pro-unification individuals— favor aggressive moves toward unification. The area of overlap between the two camps on this issue is considerable.)

The distribution of legislative seats in the wake of the December 1 election reflects these preferences quite well: The Blue camp won 115 seats, or 51 percent, while the Green camp ended up with 100 seats, or 44 percent of the total. However, the Pan-Blue and Pan-Green totals are deceptive. In fact, political calculations among party leaders and legislators are likely to shift the balance of power toward the Greens.

What Happens Next?/h2>

Since President Chen’s inauguration in May 2000, Taiwan’s legislature has been gridlocked, as KMT and PFP members blocked many of the government’s legislative initiatives. If Taiwan is to move forward to address its problems, particularly on the economic front, President Chen must form a government that is capable of delivering legislation. While the DPP does not have a majority in the legislature, it is the largest single party, and it also, importantly, controls the presidency. As a result, KMT chairman Lien Chan already has acknowledged that the DPP will form the next government, a cabinet to be named by February 1.

To make its government effective, the DPP will need a voting bloc of at least 113 legislators (its strategists hope for a more secure margin of 120). While the TSU and DPP have a solid alliance, a formal party-to-party coalition with the KMT or PFP is unlikely. Instead, the DPP will work to win over informal coalition partners from among the ten independent legislators and disgruntled KMT legislators. At the moment, intense negotiations are underway between DPP leaders and key KMT legislators, including the current speaker of the legislature, Wang Jin-pyng. Wang has close ties to President Chen, and may be induced to assist a DPP-led government if the DPP supports his bid to continue as speaker. The shape of the new government will become clear over the next few weeks, as these negotiations bear fruit.

At the same time, Chen will benefit from a divided opposition. One factor working in his favor is the continuing split within the KMT between the mainlander- oriented faction and the so-called “localist” (bentu) faction. Whatever direction Chairman Lien Chan takes, one or the other of these factions could bolt. If he cooperates with the Chen administration, the “Blues” in the party are likely to flee, perhaps to the PFP. If he does not cooperate with the government, and seeks common cause with Soong and his party, the remaining localists will be aggrieved. As for the PFP, Soong’s presidential ambitions for 2004 make an alliance with Chen (who is eligible for re-election) extremely unlikely.

At the moment, the odds seem to favor a DPP-led government with a workable, if ad hoc, legislative majority resting on defections (whether formal or informal) from the KMT. Two institutional bodies exist to channel these defections: President Chen’s “cross-party alliance for national stabilization” and Lee Teng-hui’s “Taiwan Advocates” group. KMT (and other party) legislators could join these pro- government groups while retaining their existing party affiliations.

Taiwan’s party system appears to be entering a new phase in its development. In the past, the KMT has taken advantage of its opponents' disarray to dominate Taiwan’s complicated multi-member district elections. The Kuomintang used local networks to accurately estimate its vote share and distribute its votes evenly among its candidates, thereby maximizing its share of seats. This year, the KMT (and the PFP as well) nominated far more candidates than it could realistically elect; at the same time, a national crackdown on vote buying, along with the weak economy, sharply cut the availability of financial lubrication for the KMT’s political machine. As a result, many KMT candidates were defeated by narrow margins, and the party’s share of the vote exceeded its share of seats for the first time ever.

The DPP, in contrast, demonstrated an extraordinary level of party discipline and organization. In its campaign, DPP candidates followed the lead of their president and party, dominating the agenda and keeping their fire focused on the opposition parties’ obstructionism in the legislature. Meanwhile, the party urged voters to chose candidates according to party loyalty rather than candidate preference. Voters were assigned to candidates arbitrarily (by ID card number or birthdate, for example) so that DPP votes would be allocated as evenly as possible. This strategy was astoundingly successful; only about a dozen DPP legislative candidates were defeated (more than three times as many KMT hopefuls lost) and the party won a larger percentage of the seats (39 percent) than votes (37 percent).

Party organization is a problem for the PFP. The party still is primarily a vehicle for James Soong, and his presidential ambitions are a driving factor in its strategy. The party includes two distinct wings, one made up of well-educated, “good government” candidates— many of them mainlanders with a pro-unification tinge— and another made up of local factions in rural areas of northern and central Taiwan. At present both groups realize they owe their success to Soong, and seem content to follow his lead. In the future, however, the contradictions between them are likely to emerge more strongly.

Finally, a note about cross-strait relations, even though this issue was (as usual) not a decisive, or even a very important, issue in the election. Most Taiwanese support the status quo in cross-strait relations, and one of Chen’s major accomplishments in his first 18 months in office was proving himself capable of maintaining stable relations with Beijing. Meanwhile, NP and some KMT politicians probably hurt their chances by appearing too eager to cut a deal with Beijing. Nor did it hurt the DPP to have Lee Teng-hui and his TSU taking a stronger anti-unification line than their own, thus giving the DPP a more centrist cast. In short, cross-strait relations was not much of a factor in the election and the outcome of the election is unlikely to change the Taiwan government’s position on the issue. Although Lee Teng-hui’s return to the political arena could push the DPP toward a more assertive nationalism, this possibility should not be overstated. Immediately after the election both President Chen and his Mainland Affairs Council head, Tsai Ying-wen, took pains to reassure foreign visitors that the government would continue its moderate policy toward Beijing.

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