MCLC: The Taiwan election: what to expect

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The Taiwan election: what to expect
Source: Sinosphere, NYT (1/13/16)
The Taiwan Elections: What to Expect
By AUSTIN RAMZY
Voters in Taiwan are expected to make history again when they go to the polls on Saturday to elect a new president and legislature.
China’s authoritarian government claims Taiwan as part of its territory, so any time the self-governing island holds an election, the world tends to pay attention. Taiwan held its first direct presidential election only 20 years ago. China’s president, by contrast, is selected by the governing Communist Party, not elected by the public.
Tsai Ing-wen, the chairwoman of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, is widely expected to become Taiwan’s first female president. Her party has traditionally favored formal independence for the island, so Beijing will not be pleased if she wins. Ms. Tsai, however, has pledged to maintain the cross-strait status quo.
A victory for Ms. Tsai would be only the second time the Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, has lost the presidency since Chiang Kai-shek’s forces fled to the island at the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949.
The Kuomintang, which has pursued closer engagement with China under the departing president, Ma Ying-jeou, could also lose control of the legislature, called the Legislative Yuan, for the first time.
Holding both the presidency and the legislature would give Ms. Tsai considerable power to pursue her party’s agenda. Her priorities include redressing injustices from Taiwan’s authoritarian past, reviving the economy and improving social safety nets.
The Presidential Candidates
Tsai Ing-wen, 59, Democratic Progressive Party
This is Ms. Tsai’s second run for the presidency after losing to Mr. Ma in 2012. A win would give the region its first female leader who is not related to a powerful male politician.
Ms. Tsai was educated at National Taiwan University and Cornell and holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics. She was a lawyer and professor before entering political life, serving as minister of the Mainland Affairs Council and vice premier. She was elected to the legislature in 2004.
Eric Chu, 54, Kuomintang
Mr. Chu was chosen as the Kuomintang’s candidate in October, replacing Hung Hsiu-chu, who was dropped by the party because of her poor showing in the polls. But the switch has changed little: Mr. Chu trails in the polls by at least 20 points. Mr. Chu is the chairman of the Kuomintang and mayor of New Taipei City.
He holds a Ph.D. from New York University and taught accounting before entering politics, joining the legislature in 1999. He has served as magistrate of Taoyuan County, and vice premier and minister of the Consumer Protection Commission.
James Soong, 73, People First Party
Mr. Soong, who was elected in 1994 as the governor of Taiwan Province (a position that was eliminated in 1998), founded in 2000 the People First Party, which favors closer relations with China. He was defeated in his 2000 and 2012 presidential bids. He also ran, unsuccessfully, for vice president in 2004.
He was born in Hunan Province, the only candidate born in mainland China, and he has a Ph.D. in political science from Georgetown University.
The Legislative Yuan
The Kuomintang currently holds 65 of the legislature’s 113 seats, all of which are up for grabs on Saturday. It needs to retain 57 of them to keep its majority. Most of the seats are chosen by geographical districts, but 34 are filled by the parties based on the national vote and six are reserved for aboriginal constituencies.
One of the first-time legislative candidates this year is Wu’er Kaixi, 47, a former student leader at the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing and a talk-show host in Taiwan. He is running as representative of a small party called the Constitutional Reform Fraternity Coalition.
Freddy Lim, 39, the lead singer of the heavy-metal band Chthonic and former chairman of Amnesty International Taiwan, is a candidate for the New Power Party, which he helped establish in January 2015. The party seeks to turn the activism of young people embodied in recent political movements into political representation.
Its other candidates include Huang Kuo-chang, a legal scholar who was a leader of the Sunflower Movement protests in 2014, when demonstrators occupied the legislature over a trade deal with China, and Hung Tzu-yung, sister of an army corporal whose death in 2013 set off large rallies.
Also running, for the Kuomintang, is Wayne Chiang, 37, a lawyer and great-grandson of Chiang Kai-shek, the Nationalist Chinese leader.
Another Kuomintang candidate is Lin Li-chan, 38, born in Cambodia and married to a man from Taiwan through a marriage broker 18 years ago. She said she hoped to be a voice for Taiwan’s growing number of spouses from China and Southeast Asia.
And there is Chang An-lo, 67, who served 10 years in prison in the United States on drug charges before being deported to Taiwan in 1995. The next year, Mr. Chang, also known as White Wolf, was accused of involvement in organized crime in Taiwan and fled to mainland China. He was arrested on his return to Taiwan in 2013 and is now free on bail. He is running as a candidate of the China Unification Promotion Party, which, as the name suggests, advocates Taiwan’s unification with the Chinese mainland.
The Results
The Central Election Commission of Taiwan will begin to post results on its website after polls close at 4 p.m. Saturday.
The new legislature will be seated on Feb. 1. The victor in the presidential race will not take office until May 20.
by denton.2 at osu.edu on January 13, 2016
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