The Cross Strait Times

Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) and Chen Chu (陳菊) have been sworn in as the new mayors of Taipei and Kaohsiung municipalities, respectively, after the elections of December 9. Despite the “State Affairs Fund” scandal and the pundits’ predictions of the KMT trouncing the DPP in both cities, the result was the same as always: KMT and DPP split the election between their stronghold cities.

Some in the Pan-Blue camp expressed concern, and some in the Pan-Green camp expressed glee that, despite the DPP’s recent presidential scandal, Hau only beat his DPP rival Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) by 13%, a smaller gap than the KMT’s 18% victory in 2002. But is this really a cause for concern for the KMT or a cause of celebration for the DPP? Not really.

Reference this table pulled from Taiwan Matters:

Taipei Mayoral Election Votes
Year …………Blue ………..Green
1994 ………..56% ………..43%*
1998 ………..51% ………..46%
2002 ………..64% ………..36%
2006 ………..53%**………40%
*DPP victory due to KMT-New Party split
**Not including the 5% that went towards Pan-Blue lawmakers Li Ao and James Soong running as independents.

The results of the 2006 election are pretty much in step with those from 1994 and 1998. Interestingly, the 2002 anomaly happened when Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was up for reelection.*** One could even argue that the overall voting trend in Taipei is a gradual eroding of DPP support, but I wouldn’t go that far. After all, there are only 4 data points from which to extrapolate.

As for Kaohsiung:

Kaohsiung Mayoral Elections
Year……….KMT ………DPP ………TSU
1998………383K……..390K
2002 ……..361K……..386K
2006………378K……..379K………6.5K

The Kaohsiung election certainly was competitive, being that Chen’s margin of victory was roughly 1,000 votes. Could the KMT have done better and gotten the extra 1,000 to win? Sure, but the win would only have been a plurality, even with a Blue-voting turnout similar to the 1998 election.

But it may be good for the KMT that they didn’t take Kaohsiung this round. If the KMT had, they would’ve peaked too early, could’ve gotten complacent, and really blow the upcoming legislative and presidential elections. Besides, the KMT won 5 seats in the Kaohsiung city council for a total of 17 KMT seats, making it the largest political party in the council (KMT 17; DPP 15; PFP 4; TSU 1; Other 7).

All in all, not the victory the KMT was expecting but still a pretty good show.

***EDIT (7 January): The above linked Taiwan Matters post expressed concern that there might not be a middle ground when it comes to voters, seeing that the voting split has been pretty much consistent; however, the 2002 election where Ma Ying-jeou broke that barrier bears examination. If it happened before, surely it could happen again, and whichever party that is able to break through this barrier repeatedly can win big.

So what was Ma’s recipe for success? Personal magnetism? Good looks? Clean image (at least, pre-receipts scandal)? Appeal to light-Green voters because he says that the future of Taiwan is to be determined by the Taiwanese? Constant support from the media? Methinks that if the secret to breaking the identity politics barrier is being good looking, then Taiwan’s future may bear the best-looking politicians in the world.