The legislative by-election in Nantou County on Saturday, won narrowly by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) over the Kuomintang (KMT), has implications for both parties ahead of the presidential election in January 2024, scholars and party sources said.
DPP candidate Tsai Pei-hui (???) won the by-election with 45,218 votes ahead of the KMT’s Lin Ming-chen (???), who polled 43,293 votes, a difference of just 1,925, according to the Central Election Commission.
While one analyst who spoke to CNA saw the election result as “a major boost” for the DPP’s new Chairman Lai Ching-te (???), who rallied his party’s troops to campaign full on for Tsai and highlight Lin’s failings, other analysts said voters simply voted against the candidate they least liked rather than enthusiastically embracing the DPP candidate.
Republic of China (Taiwan) Vice President Lai became DPP chairperson in January after President Tsai Ing-wen (???) resigned in the wake of the party’s heavy defeat in local elections on Nov. 26.
With Saturday’s victory, Lai proved himself to be a leader “able to lead the party to victory after several defeats and deflate KMT confidence,” which is important for him as he eyes a presidential run in 2024, said Yuan Hao-lin (???), a professor from the Graduate Institute of National Policy and Public Affairs at National Chung Hsing University.
Yuan was referring to consecutive DPP defeats in the delayed Chiayi mayoral election on Dec. 18, and the legislative by-election in Taipei on Jan. 8, following the local elections on Nov. 26.
After three straight wins, the KMT was in high spirits with the 2024 presidential election only 10 months away so the DPP knew it “couldn’t afford to lose” the Nantou by-election, Yuan said.
Since January, Lai had instructed party officials to fight theby-election “as if it was a national poll,” and he even dispatched a group of staffers from party headquarters to Nantou to run the campaign, a party source said.
The DPP’s morale has been at a low ebb since the local elections, and it desperately needed a win to show the party has regrouped from electoral setbacks after carrying out reshuffles within the government and the party earlier this year, according to multiple DPP sources.
To win the by-election, the DPP’s strategy focused on Tsai Pei-hui’s character and attacked the many controversies surrounding Lin and his family, which proved effective in winning votes for the DPP in a traditionally KMT stronghold, a DPP source said.
Tsai Pei-hui, 51, is an activist-turned-politician. Before serving as a DPP at-large legislator from 2016-2020, she was an advocate and academic leading campaigns to address challenges faced by rural villages, including forced conversion of land, the lack of longterm care or insufficient resources for development.
Lin, on the other hand, is a veteran Nantou politician. He started his political career in 1994 as head of Jiji Township and worked his way up to become a county councilor for three years, a two-term legislator for six years, and then a two-term Nantou County magistrate for eight years.
During the race, the DPP took aim at the lack of waste processing facilities in Nantou that has left the county’s landfills with 200,000 tons of garbage piled up, a longstanding issue unaddressed by Lin when he was in office.
The former magistrate also came under fierce criticism from the DPP for creating an illegal “special assistant” position for his son Lin Ru-bin (???) to groom the younger Lin for politics, the “luxury houses” owned by his family, and the corruption allegations surrounding his team.
Chang Chun-Hao (???), a professor of political science at Tunghai University, said that the election was the epitome of a trend that has become increasingly prevalent in recent years whereby voters tended to cast a vote more “against” than “for” a candidate.
Since the Nov. 26 elections, the DPP has gradually regained its footing, with Lai recognized as the party’s likely nominee for the 2024 presidential election and committed to revamping the party, Chang said.
In comparison, the KMT is mired in infighting as to who shouldrun for presidency, he added.
Despite the strong campaign run by the DPP, Tsai Pei-hui only won by a thin margin. It remains to be seen what these recent small-scale elections mean for the upcoming presidential and legislative races in January 2024, but both parties have a lot of work to do to convince voters.
The main opposition party has wasted no time with a recent visit by its Vice Chairman Andrew Hsia (???) to China to emphasize the need for dialogue with Beijing, and to look after the interest of the many Taiwanese businesses in China, especially as the risk of war rises.
The Tsai administration recently came under fire for proposed revisions to the All-out Defense Mobilization Readiness Act, which the KMT said included provisions to draft students aged 16 and older to be civilian fighters, a statement described by the Tsai administration as a distortion. The government said there is no timetable to complete the revision after a public outcry.
The KMT’s victory in the Taipei legislative by-election by a margin narrower than had been expected and Saturday’s loss were warning signs for the KMT in the run up to the 2024 presidential election, a KMT source said.
In the Nov. 26 elections, the KMT’s main strategy was to evoke negative emotions among voters against the DPP, but the “effect of the strategy has been gradually diminished as was seen in the legislative by-elections in Taipei and Nantou,” a KMT source said.
A KMT source admitted that the DPP’s campaign against Lin effectively shaped negative impressions that “the dominance of family politics seemed to be looming in Nantou,” identifying this as the crucial factor to his defeat.
“The loss in a KMT stronghold was a bruising defeat,” a KMT source said.
The KMT must make “a convincing argument” about its ability to handle cross-strait relations and international geopolitical issues and “propose platforms that can resonate with people” to win the presidential and legislative elections slated for January 2024, KMT sources said.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel