ROC Grand Assembly Elections 5/14

[jaichind]

Republic of China May 14 94th Year of the ROC
Grand Assembly Elections

300 seats available elected based on party lists

Prediction:

KMT (China Nationalist Party): 43%
DPP (Democratic Progressive Party): 33%
PFP (People First Party): 12%
TSU (Taiwan Solidarity Union): 10%

[Banana Republic]

Didn't they just have an election?

[jaichind]

Didn't they just have an election?

The December election was for the Legislature.  The Grand Assembly is sort of a Constitutional Convention for the purposes of amending the ROC Constitution.  On the agenda is a proposal to change the number of MP in the ROC Legisalture from 225 to 113 and the election method to a single district winner-take-all plus a party list system (very similar to Japan only Japan's party lists are linked to different regions.)

[2952-0-0]

Do the visits of Lian and Song to the mainland help their parties?

[jaichind]

Lien's visit for sure helped the KMT.  Prez Chen had to flip-flop several times on this after it became that a majority supported Lien's trip.  This pushes pro-independence DPP supporters toward the more radical TSU.  TSU most likely will gain votes from DPP defections.  Soong's visit will at most limit the slide of pro-unification votes from PFP toward the KMT.  This is why Soong has to make even more pro-unificationist noises on his current trip to the mainland.  Chen is in a tight spot.  For him to attack Soong is to destroy a possible DPP-PFP alliance.  But not to would mean more defections to TSU.

[2952-0-0]

Bump. Low turnout and a victory for the Pan Greens is what I hear so far.

[Frodo]

the results:

Taiwan's Chen wins crucial vote

Chen Shui-bian's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won 42.5% of the vote - the opposition Nationalist Party 38.9%, election officials announced.

Mr Chen will see the result as a vote of confidence in his policy towards China, says the BBC's Chris Hogg.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4546437.stm

[jaichind]

Republic of China May 14 94th Year of the ROC
Grand Assembly Elections

300 seats available elected based on party lists

Prediction:

KMT (China Nationalist Party): 43%
DPP (Democratic Progressive Party): 33%
PFP (People First Party): 12%
TSU (Taiwan Solidarity Union): 10%

Results

KMT (China Nationalist Party): 39%
DPP (Democratic Progressive Party): 43%
PFP (People First Party): 6%
TSU (Taiwan Solidarity Union): 7%
Others (Almost all pro-Pan-Blue): 6%

What happend:

Very low turnout of 23%.  Turnout was expected to be 40%.  Lack of interest and torrential rain on Taiwan Province depressed turnout.   The rain was mainly focused in Northern and Eastern parts of Taiwan Province where the Pan-Blues are strong.  It was clear skies in the Southern part of the province where the Pan-Greens are strong.  60% of the core Pan-Green supportered turned out while 40% of the core Pan-Blue supporters did.   I am almost certain if turnout was 40% as expected (if there had been no heavy rain in the North) the results would look much more like my prediction.

If turns of votes it was a virtual tie between the Pan-Greens and Pan-Blues given that the vast majority of the "others" are pro-Blue outfits.  But this is a significant turnout victory for the Pan-Greens given the fact that the Pan-Blues has a 3:2 lead in party identification over the Pan-Greens.

The key vote share to look for is the DPP+KMT share.  If that crosses 75% (which it easily did), then the Constitutional reforms that will make future Legislative elections based on a first-past-the-post system will pass easily.  This new system is expected to benifit the large parties (KMT and DPP) but especially the KMT.  KMT support is better distributed across the province and are strong in small counties which will be overrepresented. 

There are rumors that the KMT intentionally depressed turnout for Pan-Blue supporters on the premise that it is just as likely to turn out a PFP voter than a KMT voter.   It wanted to make sure that the DPP+KMT vote share crossed 75%.  Even it did not do that the rains in Northern parts of Taiwan Province did the KMT's job for it.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm just glad KMT got beat. Taiwan was a police state for over 20 years when they ran it and China under them was hardly any better than under Mao.

[jaichind]

I'm just glad KMT got beat. Taiwan was a police state for over 20 years when they ran it and China under them was hardly any better than under Mao.

Eh.  Under the KMT, Taiwan Province became the only economy in the world to enjoy a positive rate of economic growth in every year between 1950 to 2000.   Oh, btw, it was the fastest growing economy for that period in the world as well.  When the KMT was in charge of the Mainland, despite Communist rebellion and dealing with various warlards, the 1930-36 period was a period of rapid although uneven economic growth and development.  When comparied to its rivals, the CPP on Mainland China, and DPP on Taiwan Province, the KMT economic record easily drawfs them.