Talk Elections

So yes. I assumed jaichind will fill us up with the details of this race, but from what I know of his views he is probably not ... happy with the expected outcome of this race. As you probably know, Taiwanese politics is split between the pan-Blue coalition who are broadly right-wing and identify with Chinese Nationalism and the pan-Green coalition who are broadly left-wing and identify as Taiwanese nationalists. Taiwanese politics is a curious game, as both sides have long-term goals, but making any steps towards these aims would be so controversial everybody has to shuffle around with symbols and secret pacts without anybody else noticing. (Very much akin to Norn politics in some ways)

The widely expected victor is of the main pan-Green party the Democratic People's Party or DPP, the main party of opposition to the one-party state that ended in the late 80's. In 1991, the ruling KMT, terrified that the DPP would overtake the legislature (Yuan) and end the Taiwanese government's One China Policy dramatically increased the Presidents power. However by the second presidential election in 2000, the DPP won the Presidency under former Mayor of Taipei Chen Shui-bian. president Chen's time in office would be controversial: having no control of the Yuan, dogged with the Asian financial crisis and corruption charges ("black gold"). He was narrowly reelected in 2004 following a supposed assassination attempt that many claimed was faked - a trial would follow which involved, among others, the forensic scientist from the OJ Simpson trial. (The 2004 election was crazy drama-filled, making Bush vs Gore seem like an election in Singapore by contrast) Chen continued in his second term to "creep" towards sovereignty, annoying the U.S. to the extent they refused to let his plane refuel in NYC or LA and forced him to go to Alaska (poor guy) and the legislature continued to throw roadblocks in his way, trying to recall him on numerous occasions. By 2006, scandal around him and his family were becoming so all-encompassing that even DPP grandee Shih Meng-tee led a sit-in to get rid of the guy. Predictably the DPP were obliterated in the 2008 elections, and Chen and his wife were thrown out in disgrace. The party has now been in the process of rebuilding under chairwoman and nominee Tsai Ing-wen, having already won a stunning victory in last local elections. Tsai has led a cautious and guarded campaign, making overtures to Washington and Beijing that the status quo will be maintained.

The other big party is the KMT. The KMT has a long and interesting history, but in the democratic era of Taiwan, it has had two elected presidents. The very curious Lee-Teng Hui who seemed to change his mind about the entire stated purpose of his party midway through his leadership (and now works on behalf of the Japanese government); and incumbent president Ma Ying-Jeou. Ma has pursued much closer economic and political ties with the PRC to the consternation of the DPP and, apparently, the Taiwanese people, who deeply distrust Beijing. Though Ma, from what I can tell, has led a fairly pragmatic administration; there is rising inequality and third party forces. Many young people simply don't care about the "issue" of reunification and wish for more of a focus on the economy. Although they don't care for DPP's stance as well, they have found the KMT's candidate Hung Hsui-Chu to be a bit of a dud. In fact she lacks governing experience at all, giving rise to a new entry ...

James Soong under his own personal party People's First. A massively popular elected KMT governor of "Taiwan Province" during the 90's, he was the one who - furious at not being nominated - split the pro-unification vote allowing the dreaded Pres Chen into power. In fact, he was widely predicted to win (the KMT's candidate Lien Chan being such a dud that many assume Presideny Lee was sabotaging his own party) until the KMT decided to drag him down with them. In the infamous 2004 election Soong served as the KMT's vice presidential nominee (under none other than former rival Lien Chan), to avoid vote splitting (to accommodate his ego, the KMT top brass apparently promised him unparalleled power.). Following two disasterous runs for Taipei Mayor and for President in 2012, a lot of people wrote Soong off as a bitter has-been. But now, ever the political chancer, Soong has jumped into the race for President. By the latest polls, Soong is overtaking the KMT candidate Hung. Could this be a repeat of 2000?

In what way?

This is very marginal, but I am curious:

The founder of the Danish People's Party (and current Speaker) Pia Kjærsgaard (68) is known to have very good personal contacts to prominent figures on the right wing of KMT (from her own generation - so rather old now), contacts established through some anti-Communist 80s/90s network I can't remember. I basically only know KMT as a historical party (pre-multi party politics), so how right wing is KMT today? What kind of international contacts do they have? Are there any other contacts to Western New Right/right wing populist parties? How about in Asia?

It has had the odd side effect that apart from EU and Israel, Taiwan and PRC is basically the only foreign policy issue DPP cares about and even if they generally don't give a damn about the right to demonstrate they have been remarkably critical of the Copenhagen police's heavy handed efforts to silence/harass/remove Falun Gong sympathisers and pro-Tibet activists during the Chinese President's last state visit. Kjærsgaard is also the Deputy Chairman of the Danish Taiwanese Society (it's chairman is a former Liberal cabinet Minister).

As President, Lee supported the 'Taiwanization' movement which is basically the idea of emphasizing Taiwan as the centre rather than the old KMT view of China as the centre and Taiwan as an appendage, which led to suspicions during his presidency that he was secretly pro-independence, and indeed after leaving the presidency he was expelled from the KMT and he founded/inspired the foundation of the Taiwan Solidarity Union, which is basically the DPP on steroids supporting the declaration of a 'Republic of Taiwan' and a new constitution.

Then again, Lee appears to be a very odd person all around.

Lee probably joined back when the KMT ran Taiwan in a autocratic semi-totalitarian manner until the 80s so he probably joined to get a career in politics and somehow ended in the , maybe it suprised him. But had the DPP or a party of the like been legal beforehand, he probably would be a member of that and not the KMT which he later off.

The strangest thing is that nowadays the proper anti-communist option nowadays would probably be the pan-Greens, who infuriate the Chinese Communists so. The KMT really is no different from other such sprawling parties of power like the LDP of Japan and PAP in Singapore - wielding enormous links and influence in the business leadership, unions and bureaucracy. In particular the party has enormous assets - it is by some measures the world's richest political party - controlling vast swathes of banks, investment firms and the majority of Taiwan's media. (The party has since 2000 shed the most ostentatious of its assets though, under somewhat suspicious means)

The party gets most of its strength from the "elite" and descendants of the refugees from the Civil War, but there are some curiosities. For example, Taiwanese aboriginals seem to vastly prefer the KMT to the DPP and its allies, as there is deep resentment between the Hoklo Taiwanese who arrived pre-Civil War (who dominate the DPP) and the aboriginals who have lived there for much longer.

I am too depressed to write about this election.  I might start writing something in a month or so when the election gets closer.  As my views on the background on the infamous Lee Teng-Hui one can see the end of my posts on

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=193763.0

Of course back in the 1980s Lee was in theory for unification while I was pro-independence.  Now I am the radical far right Chinese nationalist determined to back Chinese reunification while Lee is pretty much on the pro-independence fringe. 

Not really, the operative modifier is "Chinese," not "Communists."

True, but there's some irony in there. Given history.

There are of course other issues going in the election. One of them is that old Atlas favourite gay marriage (it combines mapmaking with homosexuality, so an ideal topic for your average Atlasian). Gay rights groups in Taiwan seem to be targeting big - the first Asian country to have marriage equality! (Nepal is supposed to have it in its constitution, but we all know how that affair is being dragged out) however they are receiving a certain amount of pushback:

http://focustaiwan.tw/news/asoc/201509200009.aspx

SHAKE-UP: KMT have voted to rescind their nomination of Hung Hsui-Chu in light of her terrible polling numbers, replacing her with Eric Chu, Mayor of New Taipei.

Chu has not significNtly changed the polling presidentially, and it seems many KMT elite are trying to save the furniture in the legislature. Of course, the KMT dogged President Chen in office and the DPP seem to be mobilising to seize a majority for the first time. Now Chu and his allies talk about avoiding "one-party state rule", which is kind of ironic as, y'know, the KMT.

Many supporters of Hung meanwhile are pissed at the KMT for throwing her under the bus - she was running a genial "low-energy" campaign, and some people respect that. Whether she uses this to her own advantage is her choice.

Obama uses the dying days of the KMT government to splash some arms to Taiwan (obviously giving arms to a DPP government would be a big diplomatic no) Beijing sniffs.

The KMT really are in desperation mode at this point. Chu picked human rights lawyer and former labor minister Jennifer Wang as his running mate tohurt the party's image as elitist, but she has been dogged by allegations of financial shadiness surrounding her properties (which made her sue the journalists and refuse to explicitly deny the claims), and been hit by a highly embarrassing protest from laid-off workers who she also sued (for some reason), and is now a regular lightning rod even in pro-Blue media.

KMT's legislative lists have also been accused of being nepotistic, rewarding local party machines and people who were willing to put up with the change to the Presidential ticket. Lianhe Wanbao (pro-KMT) has called it “the worst legislators-at-large list in history.”

Congrats DPP.

Now this could be interesting:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/26/taiwan-heavy-metal-star-stands-for-election

Some sort of podemos style movement?

Perhaps a more... strenuous intervention by the US on behalf of the KMT is needed?

poll for the proportional section of the Yuan:

DPP 27%
KMT 23%
New Power 6% (the new leftish party which is strongly calling for democratic reform, like eliminating two of the five (!!!) branches of government and MMP. Its leader is the Amnesty Chairman/metal singer Huang Kuo-chang, who is associated strongly with the student-led Sunflower movement of 2014.

People First 5% (James Soong's outfit, and KMT ally. Soong is a fairly savvy politician being one of the first pan-Bluers to make outreach into Taiwanese speaking voters. His party itself (essentially written off a few years ago) is jumping ship, eschewing the KMT's domestic agenda (one of its candidates in Taipei has actually won the DPP's backing.)

Green - SDP 3% (Green party founded in the 90's in alliance with new lefty party)

Taiwan Solidarity Union 2% (as Hash said "DPP on steroids")

Other parties running include Tree Party, an anti-sprawl splinter of the Green Party; MCFAP (pan Blue, aimed at "soldiers’, civil servants’, and teachers’ dignity" ; the Unionist Party, a unification party led by the gangster Chang An-le ("White Wolf"); Taiwan Independence Party (DPP on even more steroids); New Party, a pan-Blue  old anti-Lee splinter that is now a misnomer and Minkuotang, a conservative pan-Blue party providing Soong's VP, has been accused of being a machine for the Chan Buddhist hierarchy at best, and being a creepy cult that preys upon college kids at worst.

Here's a predictions that seems credible (keep in mind I speak neither Taiwanese nor Mandarin, so I go via Google Translate or Anglophone Taiwanese journalists/bloggers):

http://www.kharistempleman.com/blog/forecasting-the-2016-taiwan-legislative-elections

essentially, the DPP have managed to ally well with minor parties, like the SDP and New Power, while the KMT have been shambolic. For a hyper-rich party of power, this is a really appalling campaign no matter what Obama does to save the status quo. I'm kind of surprised that the media aren't covering this election more tbh.

https://frozengarlic.wordpress.com/2015/12/29/whats-your-lucky-number/

Fun blogpost for lovers of psephological data. (so, err, all Atlas users)

Nice find, Mr. Crabs.

As for the actual election, I find myself rooting for the KMT out of principle (oh the irony).  Sad to see them getting shellacked so hard for things that are largely out of their control.  Hope cross-strait relations don't get derailed as hard as I fear they will with the DPP in power.

I guess I do have to write something about this as depressing as it is.  At this stage DPP will sweep the victory with ease with the pan-Blue vote split and a swing toward the pan-Green camp.  What did the KMT in are

a) The obvious anti-incumbency that sinks in after 8 years in power
b) While the Ma regime has been more corruption free than the previous DPP Chen regime his government had its share of scandals which is at odds with the ultra clean image Ma had coming into power
c) While the strategy of economic integration with the Mainland did bring success in headline economic numbers the benefits has been skewed toward the top of the income scale.  What was the killer for the KMT is that coastal Mainland China has moved upstream in the economic chain much faster than expected and has eaten into the economic base of the Taiwan Province middle class in Northern Taiwan Province which is the base of the KMT voting bloc.  This fact is the basis of the 2014 Sunflower movement.
d) The worst of all is the endless KMT civil war between President Ma and KMT speaker of the House Wang.  Now both will go down together.

Chu running instead Hung is more about saving KMT seats in the congressional campaign than winning.  Sung running at a certain level helps the KMT in the sense it could draw away Pan-Blue anti-KMT votes that would have gone to Tsai in a straight KMT-DPP race.  

Tsai is running a middle-of-the-road campaign on the unification-independence issue to avoid being beating down just like in 2012 when Ma turned the election into a Blue-Green unification-independence showdown.  Tsai is running on "status-quo" on the Mainland China issue leaving it to voters imagination what status quo means.  

As a radical unificationist I am a lot more calm about DPP coming into power in 2016 than in 2000.  At this stage the PRC military lead over the ROC as well as the huge economic integration between Mainland China and Taiwan is such so that there is no way any DPP regime would risk anything even close to declaring Independence.  The main difference a DPP regime would make would be the nature and pace of further economic integration with the Mainland.

I think at this stage the election results would be something like

Tsai     51
Chu     34
Song   15

In Legislature it would be something like

Cities directly under Central Government
 Taipei City                  KMT 6 PFP 1 DPP 1
 New Taipei City          KMT 5 DPP 7
 Taoyuan City             KMT 5 DPP 1
 TaiChung City            KMT 3 DPP 5
 Tainan City                DPP 5
 Kaoshiung  City          DPP 9

Taiwan Province
 Keelong City              KMT 1
 Yilan County              DPP 1
 Hsinchu City              KMT 1
 Hsinchu County         KMT 1
 Maioli County             KMT 2
 Changhwa County     KMT 2 DPP 2
 Naotou County          KMT 2
 Yunling County          DPP 2
 Jaiyi City                    DPP 1
 Jaiyi County               DPP 2
 Pingdong County        DPP 3
 Hualiang County        KMT 1
 Taidong County         KMT 1
 Penghu County         DPP 1

Fuijan Province
 JinMen County          NP 1
 Lianjiang County       KMT 1
 
Aborigine seats           KMT 4 DPP 1 NPB 1

Party list                    KMT 11 DPP 14 PFP 3 NPP 4 NP 2

Which gives us

Pan-Blue     54
 KMT  46
 PFP    4
 NP      3
 NPB    1

Pan-Green  59
 DPP   55
 NPP     4

Which gives the Pan-Greens a narrow majority.

Isn't it fun that Taiwanese politics can bring hardcore communists and libertarian poll tax supporters under the same umbrella? :D

I really find Soong's choice of running mate peculiar. I mean better than Chu's choice lol, but still/

I don't know anything about Taiwan politics, so excuse my ignorance....

...so the gist of this is KMT is pro-unification and DPP is anti-unification and pro-independence, but it's not completely about this issue? DPP is trying to be more nuanced and vague without changing positions?

Some interesting facts, some personal.

1) NPP leader 黃國昌 (Huang Kuo-chang) who is running on the anti-Mainland China line to capture the radical independence vote and squeezing out pro-independence TSU in the meantime was recently exposed to have
  a) A father-in-law that has a very large Mainland China investment operation which does not jive with Huang's attacks on "traitors" that invests on the Mainland
  b) Published a book back in 2008 with the help of Beijing University where Taiwan was referred to as a "region" which is fine by me but is an anathema to independence activists
Overall Huang is serving is role to help Tsai.  Tsai needs to move the the middle as there is no pro-Independence majority so Huang moves in to pick up the slack at the congressional level and back Tsai in the election  

2) Green Party-SDP is interesting at a personal level. Both the original founder of the pro-independence Taiwan Green Party 高成炎 (Wang Kao-Yan) (a professor now retired from politics) and as the current leader of SDP 范雲 (Fang Yun) (who was a student activist back in the late 1980s) are personal friends of the pro-independence branch of my family.  The pro-independence branch of my family is a major financial supporter of both of them and I am sure they are helping out this time as well even as they will vote DPP.  My cousin is actually pretty close to 范雲 and I meet her several times on my various trips to Taiwan Province.  Of course as a radical Chinese nationalist and unification supporter I would not touch these guys politically with a ten foot pole.  At a personal level I found both of them very interesting people and I enjoy their company.

高成炎
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范雲
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I think the crux of the issue is that the bases of the parties really, really, really want either unification or independence, but for most of the population, it's a lesser concern and neither extreme (i.e. being subsumed under Beijing's wing/starting WW3) really is that appetising for your average Taiwan resident.  So a DPP government will throw a bit of red meat to their base (via symbolic name changes etc.) but don't want to alienate the majority of the population by sincerely carrying through their desire (unless they become radicalised by Beijing doing something especially dumb).

jaichind, who would you vote for? Soong? MKT? New Party? KMT?

Why is that surprising?  Over the 1990s the extreme Chinese nationalist right on Taiwan Province and HK has mostly become pro-CCP even as they are still very negative on the CCP program.  The proto-NP on Taiwan Province was the first to start this process in 1992.  I came out of the closet in 1993 when I went to college and became openly pro-CCP even though I started to have pro-CCP thoughts as early as 1989.  I shocked my relatives when I came out with my position.  They said "I thought you hated the CCP."  I said in many ways I am still very negative toward the CCP but I objection to Taiwan Independence on Taiwan Province and the social democratic opposition on Mainland China are even greater.  It is not just Taiwan Independence which I cannot stand (even as I was for Taiwan Independence in the 1980s) I cannot risk the result of the overthrow of the hated CCP on Mainland China just to be replace by a welfare state.  It has to be cutthroat capitalism all the way and if that means having the CCP in charge to get it so be it.

Oh not surprising, just amusing. :D

Speaking of running mates. Tsai's running mate 陳建仁 (Chen Chien-jen) is interesting.  He is a political independent and a well respected academic who got along well with the DPP regime of 2000-2008.  Chen's father 陳新安 (Chen Sing-An) was the founder of the pro-KMT White Faction in Kaoshiung and was a KMT County magistrate of Kaoshiung County in the 1950s.  In the 1950s-1990s period Kaoshiung politics was dominated the pro-KMT White Faction, pro-KMT Red Faction, and anti-KMT Black faction which later became the Kaoshiung branch of DPP.   KMT Speaker of the House Wang and rival to President Ma is also from the Kaoshiung White faction.  Chen Sing-An actually got along well with Black Faction founder 余登發 (Yu Deng-Fa) despite the fact that the Black faction was anti-KMT.  Yu, ironically, was a very strong supporter of Chinese unification despite being anti-KMT and remained so until his death in 1989 even as he joined the DPP.  Yu's children and grandchildren are now big cheese in the Kaoshiung DPP.  For Chen Chien-jen this cross partisan friendship of his father paved the way for him to get along well with the DPP government even as a academic that worked with the government and him being picked as Tsai's running mate.

You mostly got it right.  Even the "base" that is for unification or Independence are often for tactical financial reasons.  It is often about which sector/business would benefit from economic integration with Mainland China.  Ironically the rate of economic development on Mainland China in the last decade has surpassed most projections and now pit places like Fujian Province and Zhejiang Province in direct economic competition with all but the most advanced sectors on Taiwan Province which in turn has weakened "unificationist" sentiment.    I am a purist on this issue but I do recognize I am in a very small minority. 

As who I would vote for I am mostly for NP but back KMT for tactical reasons.  My family's positions are quite wide and range from NP to TSU/NPP (one of my uncles was almost drafted as a TSU candidate in local elections back in 2009) but most vote tactically for KMT or DPP.   Between Chu and Hung obviously I prefer the pro-unificationist Hung.  Neither would win anyway so in that sense I rather have Hung run.  But I totally get that Chu would save a few KMT seats in places like New Taipei City, Taoyuan City and Taichung City in the Congressional races. 

I found it pretty funny as well.  One of the best ones back in the late 1990s was the Mainland China CCP controlled Chinese Communist Youth League formed fraternal relations with the KMT created far right Chinese Anti-Communist National Salvation Youth League on the basis of Chinese nationalism.  I also find on my trips to Mainland China, that I, a rabid Far Right Old KMT (like KMT of the 1950s and not the KMT of the 1970s) supporter found myself as the main defender of the CCP in various political discussions  over meals with business partners of my family's investments on Mainland China.  And we are talking me defending the CCP against the attacks by people who were CCP members with membership of sometimes over 40 years.

Former DPP MP 沈富雄 (Sheng Fu-Shiung) and now political commentator (he is more pro KMT these days despite his DPP background) came out with his predictions.  He was pretty accurate back in 2008 and 2012 (even though I was a bit more accurate in both elections.)  He predicts that Tsai will win by 2.5 million votes.  Assuming turnout around 75% that would translate into a lead over Chu by around 18%.  And assuming that Sung wins around 15% of the vote that would mean it will be

Tsai   51.5
Chu   33.5
Sung  15

Whereas my prediction is

Tsai   51
Chu   34
Sung  15



Back in 2012 Sheng predicted

Ma     52
Tsai   44
Sung 4

whereas I predicted

Ma   51
Tsai  45
Sung  4

With the result being

Ma   51.6
Tsai 45.6
Sung  2.8



In 2008 Sheng predicted

Ma     59.5
Hsieh  40.5

whereas I predicted

Ma      59
Hsieh  41

and the real results being

Ma     58.4
Hsieh 41.6


Sheng also predicts that DPP will capture a majority in the legislature on its own which I also predict as well but very narrowly.   Sheng predicts it will take the KMT at least two election cycles to come back into power.  Sheng also feels that with Sung retirement the PFP will die off and at the same time NPP will displace TSU as the pro-independence party.  

With 10 days before the elections all publishing of polls are now banned.  The last poll before the ban the pro-KMT TVBS station which has a long track record of doing polls came out with

Tsai    43
Chu    25
Song   15

based on which it projects

Tsai    53
Chu    31
Song   16




Back in 2012 10 days before the election blackout TVBS had

Ma   41
Tsai  35
Song  7

based on which it projected

Ma   48
Tsai  45
Song  7


On the day before the 2012 election TVBS had (although it was only able to publish after voting ended)

Ma   43
Tsai  35
Song  5

based on which it projected

Ma   49
Tsai  46
Song  5


With the final result being

Ma   51.6
Tsai 45.6
Sung  2.8




Back in 2008 10 days before the election TVBS had

Ma      54
Hsieh  29

based on which it projected

Ma      60
Hsieh  40


On the day before the 2008 election TVBS had (although it was only able to publish after voting ended)

Ma      51
Hsieh  29

based on which it projected

Ma      58
Hsieh  42


and the real results being

Ma     58.4
Hsieh 41.6



What TVBS does in its projections based on the poll  is try to eliminate its pro-KMT house effects as well as the fact that pan-Greens tend not voice their support for their preferred candidate when polled.  It is doing the same here as well.  One other factor I think TVBS is not taking into account is that in almost all elections up until 2016 the pan-Blues were always ahead in (even in 2000 and 2004 when the DPP actually won, the DPP were behind in the polls up until the the blackout period) so the pan-Green under-polling has also to do with not wanting to come out for the losing side.  This time it is clear DPP is going to win so pan-Green voters should have less inhibition from expressing their support for Tsai.    So I think the DPP-KMT-PFP 10-6-1 split in undecided is not logical.  It should be more like 8-8-1 which would give it

Tsai  51
Chu  33
Song 16

which would be very similar to my prediction of

Tsai   51
Chu   34
Sung  15

TISR does come out with monthly party/bloc identification numbers.

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The chart on the right are the identification numbers for pan-Blues vs Pan-Greens.  After DPP's very narrow and controversial re-election in 2004 which led to massive pan-Blue protests which in turn turned off independents led to pan-Blues and Pan-Greens are near parity by mid 2004 where as historically pan-Blues usually have a lead over pan-Greens by 10%. 

In the aftermath of the disastrous second term for DPP's Chen of 2004-2008, the gap pan-Blue gap grew to over 20% in the 2006-2009 period.   Of course once KMT's Ma came into office anti-incumbency began to wear on the pan-Blues and by the 2012 elections the gap was back down to around 10%.  The the KMT's Ma had their own disastrous second term which led to a Pan-Green lead over Pan-Blues by around 5%.  Note the resiliency of the Pan-Blues that even in a disastrous second KMT term it still managed to be behind by only 5%.   

TISR also have overall approval indices for the KMT (Blue), DPP (Green) and recently added CCP (Red)

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Starting around 2009 KMT and DPP were mostly tied with the DPP having the upper hand right after the 2012 elections.  All things equal CCP approval is not that bad.  The approval rating for CCP today is about the approval rating for KMT today and DPP back in 2006-2008

The Chu/Wang ticket has drifted economically leftwards in a manic attempt to get the yoofs (http://atimes.com/2016/01/taiwan-presidential-election-while-heading-left-on-economy-can-eric-chu-debate-his-way-to-more-votes/)

The race for 新竹縣 (Hsinchu County) Legislative seat is quite interesting.  It is really KMT vs KMT vs KMT or more like DPP running as KMT candidate vs KMT vs KMT.  

Hsinchu County has always been dominated by KMT with their base in the dominate Hakkas of this fairly wealthy, for a rural county, area.  Most political conflict over the last couple of decades revolve around the rivalries of two KMT political power brokers namely 鄭永金 (Cheng Yung-Jin) and 邱鏡淳 (Chiu Ching-chun).

In the 1997 Hsinchu County county magistrate elections the KMT nominated Cheng ( 鄭永金) which provoked Chiu (邱鏡淳) to run as an independent and was expelled from the KMT.  In an anti-KMT year, the DPP candidate 林光華 (Lin Guan-Hua) won in a close 3 way race.  

After that the KMT managed to get Cheng (鄭永金) and Chiu (邱鏡淳) reconciled and both ran as KMT candidates in the 1998 Legislative election region with the KMT winning 2 out of 3 seats in this 3- seat election region as both won and became MPs.  

In 2001 the KMT worked out a deal where Cheng  (鄭永金) would run as the KMT candidate for County magistrate while Chiu  (邱鏡淳) will run for re-election as MP with an understanding that when 2005 comes around Cheng ( (鄭永金)) will yield for Chiu ((邱鏡淳)) to run.  Both won their respective seats with Cheng  (鄭永金) beating DPP incumbent Lin (林光華) in the county magistrate seat and Chiu (邱鏡淳) winning re-election as MP as a winner out of the 3- seat district.

In 2004 Chiu (邱鏡淳) ran for re-election in the Legislative elections winning in the 3- seats district while the DPP candidate 林為洲 (Lin Yo-Chiu) also won one for the DPP.  

In 2005 Cheng  (鄭永金) broke his promise to not run for re-election and was re-nominated by the KMT beating  Lin (林光華)  again for County Magistrate with the KMT convincing Chiu (邱鏡淳) not to break with the party over this promising him the renominate him in 2008 for the Legislative elections where all districts are moving to FPTP and away from multi member districts as well as nominate him for County Magistrate in 2009 when the Cheng  (鄭永金) second term ends.

By 2008 Lin (林為洲) has broken with DPP and did not seek to run in the Legislative elections and Chiu (邱鏡淳) pretty much was going to run with no real opposition until a pro-KMT independent 徐欣瑩 (Hsu Hsin-ying) decided to challenge the duopoly of  Cheng  (鄭永金) and Chiu (邱鏡淳) in Hsinchu County KMT politics.  2008 was a very bad year for the DPP which decided to back Hsu (徐欣瑩) since it had no chance on its own.  In theory Hsu (徐欣瑩) was aligned with the Cheng  (鄭永金) faction so she was hoping to win by getting implicit support from DPP and  Cheng (鄭永金) faction.   Chiu (邱鏡淳) won fairly easily even though the Cheng  (鄭永金) wing of the KMT was lackluster in their support of the Chiu (邱鏡淳) campaign since it was such as strong KMT year.

In 2009 as promised the KMT nominated Chiu (邱鏡淳) for County Magistrate but Cheng (鄭永金) had his right hand women 張碧琴 (Chang Bi-Chin) run as an independent against Chiu (邱鏡淳) and the DPP's 彭紹瑾 (Peng Tsao-Jin).  Cheng (鄭永金) was expelled from the KMT as a result.   Chiu (邱鏡淳) actually recruited former DPP MP Lin (林為洲) to join the KMT and back his campaign.  Chiu (邱鏡淳) managed to win in a close 3 way race.  

In 2010 a by-election took place for the Legislative seat since Chiu (邱鏡淳) vacated his seat as MP to take over as County Magistrate.   The Cheng (鄭永金) faction of the KMT tacticaly backed Peng (彭紹瑾) who  ran on the DPP ticket and defeated the KMT candidate in a low turnout election.  This provoked  Chiu (邱鏡淳) and the KMT making mends with Cheng (鄭永金)  who rejoined the KMT in 2011.  The KMT also managed to get Hsu (徐欣瑩) to re-join the KMT promising her that the KMT will nominate her in 2012 for the Legislative seat.

In 2012 as expected Hsu (徐欣瑩) ran as the KMT candidate and with backing from both Chiu (邱鏡淳) and Cheng (鄭永金) easily won her with the largest number of votes of any Legislative winner that year.

For the 2014 County Magistrate elections Cheng (鄭永金) wanted to be nominated by the KMT but the KMT went with the incumbent Chiu (邱鏡淳).  Cheng (鄭永金) then ran as an independent which led him to be expelled from the KMT and went over to back the DPP at the national level to get DPP support to run against Chiu (邱鏡淳).  Chiu (邱鏡淳) won in a narrow race even as Chang (張碧琴) stayed in the KMT and tried to stay neutral.

After the disastrous 2014 elections for the KMT, Hsu (徐欣瑩) broke from the KMT and formed the KMT splinter MKT and was going to run for re-election for her seat against the formal KMT candidate. Then  Hsu (徐欣瑩) was picked by PFP's Sung to on his ticket as Vice Presidential candidate so MKT nominated 邱靖雅 (Chiu Ching-Ya) who was a pro-KMT independent on the County Assembly but joined MKT when it was formed breaking from the KMT.  The KMT which in Hsinchu County is now run by Chiu (邱鏡淳) now that Cheng (鄭永金) is expelled from the KMT again and having gone over to be pro-DPP decided to nominate ex-DPP MP Lin(林為洲) as its candidate given the close inter-personal relationship between Chiu (邱鏡淳) and Lin(林為洲).   Cheng (鄭永金) decided to run as well as with DPP support.

So the election is  Lin (林為洲) (former DPP MP but now on the KMT ticket) vs  Cheng (鄭永金) (former KMT MP and County Magistrate but with DPP support) vs Chiu (邱靖雅) (ex-KMT member but now on the KMT splinter MKT ticket) which makes it KMT vs KMT vs KMT.

It is hard to say who has the upper hand.  Clearly with  Hsu (徐欣瑩) out of the race MKT's chances is much lower.  If this was an by-election then for sure  Cheng (鄭永金) who has the stronger personal political network should win.  But in a general election the KMT party label, even in a very bad year for the KMT, should still still give Lin (林為洲) a small edge especially now Cheng (鄭永金) is now in the DPP camp so the anti-DPP vote will migrate toward Lin (林為洲) especially when Chiu (邱靖雅) has a low chance of winning.

30% of Taiwanese approve of the CCP? Out of curiosity, are these some kind of hardcore left-wingers, right-wingers dreaming of becoming a HK-style SAR, or some kind of third mixture?

Hmm. Maybe the CCP should run candidates in Taiwan. Clearly they'd have some support! The constitutional implications of that would of course be prohibitive, though.

e: Also, what role, if any, does the military play in all this?

Well, I am part of that 30%+ :)  I would say about 10% out of that 30% are hardcore Chinese nationalists like myself.  We approve of the CCP in the sense that we approve of that it is "A Party of Chinese nationalism" even if it is not "The Party of Chinese nationalism" which many including myself hark to the KMT of the 1950s-1960s as that party.  

The rest most likely approve of CCP for economic reasons.  Understand that while the economic benefits to Taiwan Province from economic integration with the Mainland has been disappointing to the average middle income Joe, that is more a function of distribution of benefits versus no benefits.  What really took place was that Provinces like Fujian Guangdong Zheijiang and Jiangsu these last 10 years has raced up the economic value chain must faster than expected and is threatening directly all major economic sectors of Taiwan Province except for the most advanced ones.  So people at the top of the economic ladder on Taiwan Province for sure benefited as did certain tourist, retail and agriculture sectors.  The real loses are small to medium  scale medium tech industrial sectors which are based in Southern Taiwan Province which are now solidly for DPP given how they been hollowed out economically by PRC.  The Northern middle class working in services that is the KMT based gained a bit but lost out a lot due to the surge of property prices in Northern Taiwan from Mainland investors as well as the top tier bidding up hosing prices.  Of course the winners does not form anywhere near the majority so this time around DPP will win.

There is not real Old Left on Taiwan Province anymore.  Many parties might be Liberal or Progressive but not Left.  If politics of an ecosystem becomes of politics of identity like on ROC (the Chinese vs Taiwanese identity) then political discourse always shift to the Right.   

Not sure what you mean by this. Do you mean identity politics in general? Because that's obviously incorrect for identity politics in other places.

My view is that all tings equal when the political discourse of an political entity becomes polarized around identity (versus class) then politics tends to shift more to the Right.  It might be populist Right but Right never-the-less.

Don't agree at all. What about the post-WWII anti-colonization struggles?

Well, when I talk about politics of identify it is more about how an entire group should identify itself and not making a separate identify due to some ethnic differences.  So anti-colonial struggles I would not count as politic of identify.  The British never claimed that Indians were British only that the British should rule over India.  On Taiwan Province, those for Taiwan Independence and the Taiwanese identify view all people on Taiwan Province as Taiwanese not just those that identify with Taiwanese.  The reveres is true for those with pro-unification Chinese identify.  Another example is Ukraine, Ukrainian nationalists in Western Ukraine view all people that live in Ukraine as Ukrainian and not just those in the West.  Just like the Pan-Russian Pan-Slavic identity also identifies Western Ukrainians as part of that identify.  In India the Hindu nationalists view Dalits as part of the Hindu identify even as the Dalit movement tries to carve out a separate Dalit identity.  So in cases where is is not about some sort racial or ethnic hierarchy but about what paradigm of identify context should be used politics tend to shift to the Right.

Except identity and class get mixed up all the time. I think what you're describing is a tendency for nationalist right-wing parties to glaze over class/ethnic differences in order to create a vague national identity.Doing this certainly can shift discourse to the right, as it destresses economic solidarity.

Chinese Communist Party has not been a left-wing party for a long time. It is an anti-democratic strong government law-and-order nationalist party with fairly extreme pro-business and anti-social-net policies in economics - a mixture that in most countries we know of would be, if anything, far right. Why would any left-wingers support it?

In the Legislature the KMT estimates that it will get 40-53 seats.  DPP estimates that it will get 55-57 seats while PFP estimates that it will get 6-7 seats.  Each estimates has its own tactical goal. 

The KMT wants to scare its core supporters with the threat of a DPP majority by saying that its seat count could be as low as 40 seats.  It is accepted that the race for President is long lost so the KMT is fearful of a low KMT turnout.  But putting an estimates as high as 53 it is trying to tell its core supporters "please turn out because even if Tsai is going to win, you can still keep the DPP from having a majority and perhaps even having the KMT beat out the DPP as the largest party."

The DPP is now scared that its core pro-Taiwan Independence vote, now seeing that Tsai will win for sure, will vote NPP on the Party List vote to get NPP to be a pressure group on the DPP in the Legislature.  By estimating 55-57 DPP is saying to its core supporters "Please vote DPP on the party list vote and not NPP, or else DPP might fall just short of majority and the KMT, PFP, and in fact NPP will blackmail President Tsai agenda.  We are about to make history by having a DPP majority in the Legislature for the first time in history.  Do not mess it up."

PFP is estimating 6-7 seats more to tell its core votes and disaffected KMT votes: "If you are fearful of DPP and want to punish KMT please vote PFP on the party list.  If PFP gets around 7 seats then PFP + KMT +NP  can make sure the DPP agenda is moderated in the Legislature since in such a case there will be no pan-Green majority or a very narrow one."

I think your view of party policy is pretty....skewed.  To call their policy far-right is just wrong.  But you are right in saying that most left-wingers are very Sinophobic these days.  It's sad. 

And honestly, even if the Communist Party was "far-right", I would still support them.  There's been a few hickups along the way, but what they've done for my people has been nothing short of incredible.  When my ancestors left China, it was an impoverished, feudal hellhole and one of the most backwards countries in Eurasia.  Now they're an emerging superpower and one of the wealthiest countries in the world.  I'm not exaggerating when I say I cried while watching the military parade a few months ago.  I love China, I love the Party, and I love how proud they make me feel.

There was a guy like that back in grad school. We used to call him "Chairman Meng" :)

I know.

Now that it is clear that DPP will be coming back to power with a likely Pan-Green if not DPP legislative majority, the USA is already making noises to make sure the new regime does not rock the boat.

"U.S. reiterates 'one China' policy ahead of Taiwan's elections"
http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201601150010.aspx

The  U.S. State Department  reiterates its position of "One China" and that Taiwan is not a country which is 100% correct.  Taiwan is a Province and region of China of which there is a current dispute on which regime is the legal government of China.

How badly the KMT gets beat will now be a function of turnout.  There has not been a large fundamental realignment of partisan alignments, so far.  Right now it is more about various parts of the KMT base not turning out of turning out for PFP instead.  Very low or very high turnout tends to help DPP while medium levels of turnout tends to help KMT.  Back in 2000 when there was a bitter 3 way race where DPP's Chen won, turnout was 82% which fell to 80% in 2004 when DPP Chen won in a close but controversial reelection .  In 2008 turnout fell to 76% which was partly about marginal DPP votes not turning out as KMT's Ma won in a landslide. In 2012 turnout was around 75% and Ma won re-election with a smaller but still comfortable majority.   The thinking this time is that turnout will be around 70%.  If it is higher than that the the Pan-Green camp would risk not having their majority. it is lower than that than the Pan-Blues risk a rout not just in the Presidential race but also in the Legislative race where they still are keeping it close.

A record 18 parties are on the party list ballot.

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Turnout very low at mid 60%.  KMT base did not turn out while DPP base had large turnout.  Many versions of the count but most likely will converge something like DPP 57 KMT 32 PFP 11.  Legislative race looking like something like KMT 34 DPP 68 PFP 3 NPP 6 NPB 1 Pro-DPP independent 1.

Just to show the effect of turnout.  Tsai for DPP got 6.1 million votes in 2012 for 45.6%.  She will now get 57% (perhaps a bit more) with around 6.6 million votes (this is guesstimate for now).  DPP base turned out a bit better than 2012 plus a small swing.  Rest of it is about pan-Blue base not turning out, including PFP base.

NPP did very well in the district races winning 3 seats.  Early results of the party list votes seems to indicate the the NPP did not do as well as expected.  It will clear the 5% threshold of course, but there was talk that NPP could get 15% of the party list vote.  While results are not clear NPP will come nowhere close to that and might even finish behind PFP in party list.

District seats are pretty clear now.  KMT 24 DPP 50 NPB 1 NPP 3 Pro-DPP independent 1.  Only possible change is the KMT might beat out the Pro-DPP independent as the gap is tiny.  I assume the Party list vote would be something like KMT 10 DPP 16 PFP 3 NPP 3.  NP might make it in. We will see.

While this loss was massive from the Pan-Blues.  I take comfort that this did not really represent some large partisan realignment, although there is a potential of that if the DPP regime is successful in contrast to the disastrous second KMT term of 2012-2016.  Assuming that DPP wins 6.5 million votes in the Presidential contest (it might be a bit higher than that as numbers from different media sources are all over the place), that is still some amount back behind 6.9 million votes that KMT's Ma got in 2012 when he got 51.6% of the vote.  

Count so far from difference sources are

KMT             DPP          PFP
30.50%   56.83%   12.67%   Official
31.11%   55.96%   12.92%   KMT count
29.52%   58.22%   12.26%   Pro-KMT Media TVBS
29.40%   58.88%   11.72%   Pro-DPP media San Li
29.68%   58.42%   11.90%   Pro-KMT Media China Times
29.21%   58.66%   12.13%   Pro-KMT Media China Television

Official count is behind as they are not from stringers.

  KMT          DPP            PFP
30.71%   56.56%   12.73%   Official
31.10%   55.99%   12.91%   KMT count
29.84%   57.77%   12.39%   Pro-KMT Media TVBS
29.22%   58.68%   12.09%   Pro-DPP media San Li
29.60%   58.26%   12.14%   Pro-KMT Media China Times
29.60%   58.10%   12.29%   Pro-KMT Media China TV

Other than Official Count and KMT count the numbers pretty much stopped from the Media outfits.  ROC media tends to "make up" numbers base on their guess on what the count is like to get more people to watch their channels.  Since the early count showed a massive DPP Tsai victory their "made up" numbers tend to favor Tsai.  Now the Official numbers are coming in and their guesses overestimated Tsai by a couple of percentage points now they have to slowly roll it back.  In a very close election this causes massive problems like in 2004.  Here it makes no difference.  DPP's Tsai won by a massive margin one way or another.

Tsai won every County and City except for Deep Blue Hualian County and Taidong County where ironically the DPP won the Legislative seats.   This can be explained by the that the the Aborigine vote which high in those two counties votes in the Prez race but not the Legislative race.  They vote in the special Aborigine multi-member seats.  Although in other Deep blue counties like Hsichu and Maioli as well as Keelong City the Pan-Blue vote did beat DPP.   Pan-Blues lost Nanto County even as the KMT won both Legislative seats there.  

  KMT         DPP           PFP
30.78%   56.46%   12.76%   Official
31.05%   56.04%   12.90%   KMT count
29.84%   57.77%   12.39%   Pro-KMT Media TVBS
29.22%   58.68%   12.09%   Pro-DPP media San Li
29.60%   58.26%   12.14%   Pro-KMT Media China Times
29.60%   58.10%   12.29%   Pro-KMT Media China TV

Now that the total vote count in the Official results are pretty close the the Media "counts" we can be pretty sure that the Official numbers are the most accurate now.   If so DPP's Tsai might end up winning only around 6.4 million votes only slightly more than her 6.1 million votes in 2012.  

Latest count

DPP        56.4%  6.4 million votes
KMT       30.8%
PFP        12.8%

Latest count

DPP        56.3%  6.5 million votes
KMT       30.9%
PFP        12.8%

Latest count

DPP        56.2%  6.66 million votes
KMT       31.0%
PFP        12.8%

It seems DPP's Tsai won Taipei City with over 50% of the vote there.   Impressive.  Shows the extent how the Deep Blue base mostly sat out this election.

Latest count

DPP        56.2%  6.7 million votes
KMT       31.0%
PFP        12.8%

Tsai's vote inching up.  Most likely still will not reach what KMT's Ma got in 2012 of 6.9 million votes. 

Turnout was most likely around 67%.  If I was told ahead of time that the turnout was around 67% then I would say that DPP's Tsai would be around 55% which is about what we are seeing.  I was expecting a turnout of around 72%-73%.  The entire 周子瑜 (Chou Tzu-yu) fiasco, which I did not get to write about but will, right before the election most likely pushed up the DPP turnout.

Latest count

DPP        56.2%  6.8 million votes
KMT       31.0%
PFP        12.8%

Party list vote so far is

DPP       44.1%     18 seats
KMT       26.9%     11 seats
PFP         6.5%        3 seats
NPP         6.1%       2 seats
NP          4.2%
SDP        2.5%
TSU        2.5%
FHL        1.7%
MKT       1.6%

If somehow NP go over 5% these results will be quite good for Pan-Blue camp under the circumstances.

Latest count

DPP        56.16%  6.86 million votes
KMT       31.01%
PFP        12.82%

This is pretty much final.  Perhaps a few thousand votes here or there.

The party list vote lines up pretty well with Prez vote

Pan-Green
DPP               44.1
NPP                6.1
Green-SDP      2.5
TSU                2.5
TP                  0.6
LTP                0.4
TIP                 0.2
LCA               0.1
------------------------
                   56.6

Pan-Blue

KMT             26.9
PFP               6.5
NP                4.1
FHL              1.7
MKT             1.6
MTU             0.7
NPB             0.6
CUL             0.4
HIA              0.4
PDA             0.3
------------------------
                  43.4

Which matches 56.1 to 43.9 for Green-Blue Balance in Prez race which actually means a tiny part of the Pan-Green vote went to PFP's Sung.

Latest count

DPP        56.14%  6.88 million votes
KMT       31.03%
PFP        12.83%

Back in 2004 when DPP's Chen won a close re-election with 50.1% of the vote he managed 6.47 million votes which feels a lot like Tsai's 6.9 million votes today.  It is the Pan-Blue vote which was 6.44 million in 2004, 7.6 million in 2008, 7.26 million in 2012, and now 5.38 million in 2016 which is a massive drop.

Latest count

DPP        56.13%  6.89 million votes
KMT       31.04%
PFP        12.83%

Legislature will be

                 District     Aborigine      Party List   

DPP              49             1                   18                68
NPP               3                                     2                  5
KMT rebel      1                                                         1
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Pan-Green                                                              74


KMT             20             4                   11                35
PFP                                                      3                  3
NPB                              1                                         1
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pan-Blue                                                                 39

The KMT rebel who was elected with DPP support might end up back with KMT.  We will see.                     

Latest count

DPP        56.12%  6.89 million votes
KMT       31.04%
PFP        12.84%

Congrats to DPP and Tsai.  It is quite an accomplishment for a women to become a leader when she is NOT the daughter or wife of another prominent male leader, especially in Asia.

One thing that is interesting about this result is the return of the "689 Conspiracy."   

Back in 2012 it was Ma vs Tsai and the consensus was that the race was neck-to-neck.  A day before the election several political boards, especially on Pan-Green political boards, had someone posting a non-nonsensical post over and over again which pretty much says "Remember 689.  This election result has been planned ahead of time.  You will know after the election.  Remember 689."  Then Ma won by a significant margin which surprised many, especially pan-Green voters and he won with 6.89 million votes.  The Pan-Green internet board was abuzz for weeks about that post before the election as proof of KMT rigging of the election.  Now in 2016 DPP's Tsai wins with.... 6.89 million votes.

Looks like the DPP was fairly effective in consolidating the Party List vote.  Toward the end of the election campaign there seems to be a strong movement among Youth Pan-Green circles to vote NPP, SDP-Green, and TSU in the party list indicating that the DPP cannot be trusted to pursue a true reformist pro-independence line and there were talk taht NPP might get to 15% of the vote on the party list. DPP had to go on a campaign last week before the election to counteract this.  Given the vote shares of NPP, SDP-Green and TSU, it seems DPP was successful.  On the Pan-Blue side, there was an unsaid movement to move votes from KMT to NP to get NP instead of PFP over the 5% threshold.  Looks like it almost worked.  NP on its own would most likely have gotten around 2% but ended up with 4.1%. Close but no cigar.

The main risk for DPP for NPP getting above 5% is that in 2020, with Sung out of the way the PFP vote will merge back into KMT.  But if DPP does not peruse the radical line then NPP might run a candidate for Prez and split the Pan-Green vote.

This story (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/01/16/watch-teenage-pop-stars-humiliating-apology-to-china-for-waving-taiwan-flag/) about a Taiwanese singer that was forced to apologize to China for waving the Taiwanese flag on Korean tv, which went viral on election day, might have helped Tsai.

This.  Great shout out.  :)

Setting her individual politics aside, this is a major step forward for a region where female participation in politics is still horrifically low.  And no surprise it's the Chinese leading the way in progress ;)

great news (I do not like CPC :))

To filter out the effect of turnout, it is interesting to compare the vote share of the Pan-Blue and Pan-Green blocs as a percentage of the electorate.

              Pan-Blue          Pan-Green
2000        49.7%              33.0%
2004        40.1%              40.2%
2008        44.6%              31.7%
2012        40.5%              33.9%
2016        29.1%              37.2%

It is clear that while the Pan-Green performance is certainly above average but not too way out the ordinary.  It is the Pan-Blue vote that is way lower than historical norm. 

Difficult result.

Yes.  This is the 周子瑜 (Chou Tzu-yu) fiasco which I mentioned before.  I am pretty sure this swung around 1%-2% of vote toward the DPP mostly by pushing up DPP turnout and depressing KMT turnout.  The entire story is a bit complex and involves what I call opportunistic nationalism.

The story really starts with a singer and entertainer called 黃安 (Huang An)

()

who is from Taiwan Province.  He was quite active on the entertainment circuit on Taiwan in the 1990s and was generally pro-DPP and appeared in several DPP rallies.  But toward the end of the 1990s he had a falling out with the Taiwan entertainment establishment and decided to move with his entire family to Mainland China where his entertainment career continued and had limited but real success.  At the same time he became, conveniently, a strong advocate for Chinese Unification even as he still perform time to time on Taiwan.  Last few years he has taken to "exposing" various entertainers from Taiwan Province that perform and make a good deal of money on Mainland China as having pro-Taiwan Independence beliefs.  Most of the entertainers he "exposed" did seem to be pro-DPP or pro-NPP and it seemed reasonable that the Mainland Chinese consumers are aware of these entertainer's position on Taiwan Independence so they can make a choice to weather to consume their entertainment product.  As a result all these entertainers did see their career/revenue decline on Mainland China.  Many say that Huang does this more to make up for the fact that he himself was for Taiwan Independence back in the 1990s before his "transformation."

But a couple of weeks ago, he went too far.  He decided to "expose" one 周子瑜  (Chou Tzu-yu) for being pro Taiwan Independence

()

Who is 16 year old girl who is from Taiwan Province but is currently a member of a Korean Girl band that performs a good part of its circuit on Mainland China.  His proof was that there are several photos with her holding the ROC and ROK flags.  There were also several cases where she filled in "Taiwan" on where she is from.   This of course is a bum rap as almost all Unification supports on Taiwan Province also identify with ROC as well. It is those that are for Taiwan Independence that tend to reject the ROC flag.  In fact the Tsai 2016 campaign is the first DPP campaign where its candidate does seem to embrace the ROC flag as an attempt to move toward the middle ground on this topic.

Huang "exposing" Chou seems to have added pressure on the band she belongs which is managed by a Korean company JYP which has vast economic links to the Mainland China market.  So JYP mostly to save itself decided to pressure Chou to release a video where she announced that "Taiwan is a part of China and I am proud to be Chinese" but done in a way to make it clear she was being pressured the day before the election.  

https://youtu.be/t57URqSp5Ew

This provoked a very negative reaction on Taiwan social media and was denounced by both the pan-Blue and Pan-Green camps.   On Mainland China most of the social media felt that Huang went too far but the radical nationalist fringe came out to back Huang.  This then provoked a "social media war" between the Mainland China youth and Taiwan youth.   To be fair,  JYP should also take a lot of the blame for this.  The PRC government clearly did not ask for this sort of "confession" from her.  It was JYP that decided to push their own employee to do something like this to humor, so they think, the PRC regime. 

It is clear that Huang clearly blew up the current situation between Mainland China and Taiwan and mostly added to the DPP landslide.  The word on Mainland China is the PRC authorities will be having a "chat" with Huang very soon to berate him for his clumsy actions which seems only to backfire him the PRC and himself.    The word also is that Huang recently have been breaking regulations on the types of commercials he is doing while performing and that the PRC regime will start to "look into" these possible transgressions.   There is already talk on Mainland China social media that Huang is really just a DPP double agent since his actions ensured the DPP victory.

DPP and Tsai was going to win one way or another but Huang added an extra nail in the KMT coffin.  I suspect Huang's music career on Mainland China will take a quick dive very soon.  

Is there any info about who are the 1st and 2nd choices for President amongst Soong voters if he didn't compete?

Thanks for your explanation, Jaichind!

I would say almost all of them would either not vote of voted KMT.  There are no exit polls so one cannot be 100% sure.  My "proof" mostly comes from the fact that the vote shares of all pan-Green parities on the party list votes versus the pan-Blue parties on the party list vote almost line up with the pan-Green (DPP) and pan-Blue (KMT+PFP) votes in the Presidential race.

ROC laws says that polls done 10 days before the election cannot be published.  But polls are allowed to be done, just not published before voting ends.  Right after polls closed, TVBS published its last poll followed by vote projections.  It was somewhat more off this time than 2004 2008 and 2012 where it was pretty accurate.  The reason it was off was for the same reason why the DPP victory was so large: turnout.

TVBS had for polls the days running up to the election

()

The 104 and 105 in the X-axis is means the 104th (2015) year and 105h (2016) year of the Republic of China which was founded in 1912.

Its final poll which was done 2 days before the election had

DPP   43
KMT  24
PFP   16

and from that it projected

()

DPP   52
KMT   32
PFP    16

Its final poll also, based on the responses on likelihood of voting, projected a turnout of 71.7% which is already a significant drop from the 74.4% turnout in 2012.  Based on that it projected the total votes to be

DPP    7.0 million votes
KMT    4.3 million votes
PFP     2.0 million votes

Which would be a 2.7 million vote victory by DPP over KMT.

TVBS's seems to have overestimated KMT/PFP turnout or was not able to take into account of the  周子瑜 (Chou Tzu-yu) incident which really reached a peak the day before the election on social media.  So the turnout ended up being 66.23% and votes being

DPP     6.89 million votes    56.12%
KMT    3.81 million votes    30.04%
PFP     1.58 million votes    12.84%

So the TVBS projection mostly got the DPP vote correct but overestimated the KMT and PFP turnout.

So RIP KMT? Although looking on polls I guess it wasn't really shocking? And on Taiwan people really use Minguo calendar?

Well, the Pan-Blue bloc for sure is not dead.  Back in 2008 when the KMT beat DPP 59-41 there were talk that DPP was dead and it was clear to me it was not.  I felt back then the Blue-Green balance was around  55-45 and the 2008 victory represented a temporary lull in DPP fortunes due to a poor second DPP term.  Same thing here although I agree now that the Blue-Green balance is now roughly 50-50.  The DPP landslide more reflected a small Green gain followed by a temporary Blue lull given the poor KMT second term of 2012-2016.  It is likely but not assured that the KMT will be the dominate party on the Blue side so in that sense KMT is most likely not dead.  On the Green side if and when Tsia falters, NPP will be a much more difficult Pan-Green rival when compared to the TSU.

As for Mingguo calendar, all official documents uses ROC or Mingguo calendar.    It is unlikely the DPP will change that.  They had their chance in 2000 and that bus left already as Tsai DPP 2016 campaign is the most moderate ever on identification with ROC.   Taiwan Independence is for sure out given the power of PRC. What the PRC should worry about is an attempt by the DPP regime to align ROC with the USA-Japan alliance in the Pacific at the military level even as a majority of the population on Taiwan Province ROC seems to want to stay out and not take sides.

Just to report on a result of a family friend that ran in this election.  One 范雲 (Fang Yun) who is the chairperson of the pro-Independence SDP ran in the Taipei 6th district on the Green Party-SDP ticket with DPP support.  She is quite close to the pro-Taiwan Independence branch of my family, especially my cousin and uncle.  She is a strong feminist, social justice activist and Taiwan Independence supporter and had held several positions in the DPP before bolting from DPP over the corruption scandal of DPP President Chen.  While I despise her politics, just like she despises my,  I know her to be a very friendly and interesting person to talk to, so while I backed her KMT opponent, just like I back the KMT across the board, I did wish her good luck in her race in the Deep Blue 6th Taipei District.

Her official campaign picture
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She was defeated by her KMT incumbent opponent 46.1% vs 35.4% with various pan-Blue and pan-Green splinters taking the rest.  It is quite an accomplishment to hold the KMT to below 50% in the Taipei 6th district.  The KMT won here 60% to DPP 30% back in 2012 with PFP getting 6.6%.  

There were two sets of events which led to this KMT disaster after it was soundly defeated in the 2014 County Magistrate and Mayoral elections.  First everyone within KMT expected new KMT Chairman Chu to run in 2016.  Everyone expected Chu to lose but perhaps keep it close.  Chu declined to run hoping to avoid to stench of defeat but also from having to deal with the continued internal battles between KMT Prez Ma and KMT Speaker of the House Wang.  So Hung, who was a radical Chinese unification supporter  ran and was nominated by default.   This provoked PFP's Sung to run as a moderate Pan-Blue alternative and began to catch fire.  With the KMT way behind in the polls, Chu was asked to step in and run instead of Hung more to save the KMT in legislative races.  This provoked the Deep Blue bloc within the KMT who felt betrayed.  They mostly did not turn out in this election and the KMT got the worst of both worlds.   The result being

Turnout   66.27%
DPP    56%
KMT    31%
PFP     13%

Playing what if.  If KMT and Chu just left it alone and let Hung run in the fall of 2015.  I would expect a lot of moderate KMT voters to vote DPP or PFP but the Deep Blue turnout would be large for Hung.  Result most likely being something like

Turnout   72%
DPP    53%
KMT    30%
PFP     17%

In many ways, as long the PFP voters mostly vote Pan-Blue in the Legislative races the results there might actually be better than what took place.  Tsai would have received something like 7.5 million votes and much greater mandate from a total votes point of view but with a somewhat smaller Legislative majority with a very powerful PFP.

If Chu just ran in early 2015 for the KMT nomination, Hung would have never entered the race.  And if Chu manages to unify the Pan-Blue bloc or at least the KMT,  then the KMT would still lose but by a less smaller margin as the PFP would have never had a chance to take off.  I would expect the result to be something like

Turnout 71%
DPP    51%
KMT   41%
PFP      8%

or if PFP does not run

Turnout 70%
DPP   52%
KMT   48%

Another country (well, in practise anyway) that beats my Sweden to having a female government leader. Gender issues aside, it seems like nationalism is as good a sell in Asia as it is over in Europe.

Here's something not totally unexpected.

Compare the map of home usage of Hokkein.


()

And a map with the Soong+Chu votes combined.

()

And they line up perfectly.



Also i didn't think that Hsinchu had that much Hokkein speakers since i always considered it mostly demographically Hakka. But turns out that its actually majority Hokkein speaking not Hakka.

Yeah, that is part of it.  But it is also true that speaking Hoklo at home is highly correlated to income (higher income tend to not speak Hoklo at home) which is also highly correlated to level of education (higher education tends not to speak Hoklo at home.)  And it is a fact that Pan-Blue Pan-Green vote split has higher income and education voting Pan Blues and lower income and education voting Pan Greens.  BTW there is also a gender gap where women tend to vote Pan Blues and men tend to vote Pan Greens.  In 2012 Tsai performed worse among women when compared to men even as she is a women herself.  I think this time around the same will be true.   But yes, the rise of the DPP to some extend is part of the assertion of Hoklo majoritarianism in reaction of the domination of the Mainlanders  in Taiwan Province politics and high society in the 1940s-1990s period.   Of course this provoked a reaction from Hakkas and Aborigines which then embraced Pan-Blues.  Of course the the 2016 DPP campaign is the least Hoklo-centric campaign it has ever ran.  Tsai being a Hakka herself and not being able to speak Hoklo well (in fact she does not speak Hakka well either is a separate point) is one reason for this.  But Tsai 2016 for sure speaks less Hoklo on the stump than Tsai 2012.  One problem with the Tsai 2012 campaign was she tried to speak Hoklo in her speeches but it was going so badly that she then just switched to Mandarin.  This time around they pretty much junked the Hoklo dialect approach and Tsai pretty much spoke Mandarin the entire campaign.  The DPP logic is pretty much "We got this one won since the Pan-Blues are not going to turn out, so lets tone down the Taiwan Independence and Hoklo stuff to stop provoking the Pan-Blues."  

Of course understand that the Hoklos being spoken today in different parts of Taiwan Province is diverging.  In richer parts of Taiwan Province the Hoklo being spoken, if a all, is becoming a more corrupted version of Hoklo with ever higher borrowing of Chinese Mandarin over time.  Even though I am a strong Chinese nationalist and for sure support the Mandarin movement as a part integration of one Chinese culture, I think the preservation of pure Hoklo outside of official use has great cultural benefits.  Hoklo is an ancient Chinese dialect which is a window to ancient Chinese culture and literature.  All Chinese poems written in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and before, especially around the Jin Dynasty (265-420) rhyme almost perfectly when spoken in Hoklo whereas they pretty much does not rhyme well when spoken in Chinese Mandarin.  Over the last twenty years I am saddened to see pure Hoklo disappear from the more advanced areas of Taiwan Province (it is quite generational) and I suspect in more backward parts the same trend is already starting.  

I will have to do my township by township result analysis once I get a hold of the data.  But doing the swing analysis on a regional basis.

Pan-Blue vote

2012       2016          Swing
91.80%   82.16%    -9.64%   Greater Jinmen (The Fujian Province counties)
74.06%   63.06%   -11.00%   Hualian County
69.50%   61.59%    -7.91%   Taidong County
66.82%   54.55%   -12.27%   Miaoli County
65.24%   53.54%   -11.70%   Greater Hsintsu (Hsintsu County+Hsintsu City)
60.15%   48.97%   -11.18%   Taoyuan County
58.41%   46.64%   -11.77%   Greater Taipei (Taipei City+New Taipei City+Keelong City)
57.63%   47.77%   - 9.86%   Naotou County
55.32%   44.99%   -10.33%   Greater Taichung (Old Taichung County+Old Taichung City)
54.35%   49.19%    -5.16%   Penghu County
53.51%   43.53%    -9.98%   Changhwa County
47.47%   37.94%    -9.53%   Yilan County
46.58%   36.61%    -9.97%   Greater Kaoshiung (Old Kaoshiung County+Old Kaoshiung City)
44.87%   36.51%    -8.36%   Pingdong County
44.19%   36.59%    -7.60%   Yunlin County
43.88%   36.46%    -7.42%   Greater Jiayi (Jiayi County + Jaiyi City)
42.28%   32.48%    -9.80%   Greater Tainan (Old Tainan County+Old Tainan City)
54.37%   43.88%   -10.49%   Total

Clearly shows the narrative of the election which is the abandonment of the urban Deep Blue section of the Pan-Blue vote base.  The Pan-Blue vote fell more in urbanized regions.  It is not even regression to the mean.  Greater Tainan which is the weakest Pan-Blue region but somewhat more urbanized had a greater drop than in Pan-Blue votes than other Green strongholds like Yunlin County, Greater Jiayi and Pingdong County even though they have stronger Pan-Blue presence.    Rural Penghu had a much smaller drop than the massively urbanized Greater Taipei even as Greater Taipei traditionally is much more strongly Pan-Blue.  Strong Pan-Blue regions like Taidong County fell a lot less than more urbanized counties.  The biggest falls of the Pan-Blue vote besides Greater Taipei are newly industrialized and urbanized areas like Greater Hsintsu (emerging IT industries), Miaoli (emerging biotech and healthcare industries) and Taoyuan (industrial spillover of Greater Taipei) even though Chu was a 2 term popular County Magistrate of Taoyuan in the 2001-2009 period. The favorite son could not stop the non-turnout of the Deep Blue vote bloc.

From a PVI point of view, there were almost no shifts, the pro-Green areas are still Changhwa County, Yilan County, Greater Kaoshiung, Pingdong County, Yunlin County, Greater Jiayi, and Greater Tainan.  The only difference is Penghu County which had a pan-Blue lean but starting in 2008 had a pan-Green lean as the Pan-Blue gained relative strength in urban areas with rural Penghu County having a pan-Green lean.  With the collpase of the urban vote for the Pan-Blues Penghu reverts to having a pan-Blue lean.

One good long term news for the Pan-Blue is the slow drift of Yilan to tilt more and more toward the Pan-Blue continues.  Yilan which is relatively rural for a Northern County but getting more advanced economicaly given its proximity to Greater Taipei  used to be the most pro-Green county back in the 1990s.  As it got more urbanized and influenced by Greater Taipei it has been drifting Pan-Blue throughout the late 1990s to 2012 period.  Yilan County for the Pan-Blues today is a lot like Virgina for the Democrats in the 1990s at the presidential level.  A couple of more election cycles could push Yilan in tilt Pan-Blue territory.

The flip side for the Pan-Greens is Changhwa County which has been slowly tilting toward the Pan-Greens over the last decade.  Despite being a fairly rural county the swing toward the Pan-Greens is fairly large compared to other rural counties.  Over time Changhwa County will most likely become more of a tilt Pan-Green County instead of being a bellwether County with a tiny tilt toward the Pan-Greens. I suspect over the next couple of election cycles Changhwa County and Yilan Counties will swap places where Changhwa County is solidly in the Pan-Green camp while Yilan will be a bellwether County with a slight Pan-Green tilt.

One positive thing for the Pan-Blues about DPP control of the Legislature on the long run is that it could plant the seeds for a partial Pan-Blue revival in Southern Rural Counties.  One of the reasons why the Southern Counties drifted to the DPP in the late 1990s was the feeling that the KMT administration over the 1980s and 1990s negelcted the economic development of Southern Taiwan Province, especially rural Southern Taiwan Province.   Support for Taiwan Independence was a proxy for envy of  Northern Taiwan Province economic gains from trade with Mainland China  During the disastrous second term DPP Chen administration of 2004-2008, there were swings away from the Pan-Greens in Southern Counties but it was much lower then one would expect and DPP continues to hold the County Magistrate positions in Southern Counties based on the rural vote.  The main reason for this was that DPP Prez Chen was able to make the argument that he could not implement his agenda for Southern Taiwan Province economic revival due to the Pan-Blue majority in the Legislature and that the Northern Taiwan politician dominated Legislature is out to get Chen, who is from the Southern Tainan.   This argument is not really valid as the economic problems of backward Southern Taiwan counties are more structural in nature.  Now with a DPP majority in the legislature  this argument goes away.   When the Tsia administration is shown up as not being able to turn around the relative economic advantage of Northern Taiwan Province the Pan Green Solid South will begin to drift to the Pan-Blues almost by default.   

The signs are starting to be quite ominous for the Pan-Blue Camp. Lots of young Taiwanese are not going to vote for them. Also the more older mainlanders are deceased due to old age and this makes the Pan-Blue camp have less of a base.

Pending the Pipe Dream of China somehow becoming Democratic within the next ten years which would result in the Pro vs Anti China/Reunification issues becoming sanitized and the politics in Taiwan switching to a generic Centre-Left vs Centre-right Spectrum. The future for the Pan-Blue Camp isnt really bright.

What you say above is a totally possible future.  But it is not a necessary future.  Yes, the Youth vote went heavily for the Pan-Greens this election and has been trending Pan-Greens for a couple of election cycles already.  On the other hand part of that is a one off related to the  周子瑜 (Chou Tzu-yu) incident the day before the election.  All polling done on the last day before the election and after it pretty much confirmed that the  周子瑜 (Chou Tzu-yu) incident swung around 4%-5% of the vote which mean that without the  周子瑜 (Chou Tzu-yu) incident Tsai was going to win around 50%-51% of the vote.  But note that among the youth the swing was 16% or so.  This is actually very similar to the 2004 election 319 incident where President Chen was shot and wounded the day before the election.  Polls done on the day before and after the election confirmed the incident swung around 4%-5% toward Chen giving him a close 50.1-49.9 victory.  Again, there the 319 incident seems to swung the youth vote around 16%-17%.  This trend reverted to the norm in the 2004 Legislative elections  a few months later.

It is totally possible that the Tsai DPP regime can rule in way that makes some of these shifts permanent, but it is totally possible it will not, just like 2004.  And if we are talking about trends, yes the youth vote today could mean the population as a whole could lean Pan-Greens tomorrow.  But on the flip side, the voting population is getting more urban which leans Pan-Blues which implies that the future will trend Pan-Blues.  Both trends are bogus because people can shift their voting pattern as they age or bring their old partisan loyalties to new urban centers.   As for Mainlanders, they are their decedents that identify themselves as such are now less than 8% of the voting population as of 4-5 years ago.  In 2012 this bloc was so small that poll does not even bother to break them out as a category.  But this fact did not stop the Pan-Blues from winning 2008 in a landslide and winning 2012 in a fairly decisive way.

If the KMT can get past his current transition and wait for the DPP regime to falter as it deals with the "One China" issue with the PRC while trying to maintain economic growth which is now very dependent on the Mainland Chinese market, the KMT domination of local politics will keep a strong farm league for the future.  Of the 22 City/County legislatures, Pan-Blues managed to elect speakers for 18 of them with 4 of them for the Pan-Greens.  And that was based on the disastrous 2014 local elction results or else the KMT domination will be even greater.  This will not bring charismatic leaders like Ma and Tsai  that can win Prez races but will keep the KMT in the game at the legislative and local levels.    

Urban Hsinchu and especially Hsinchu City is for sure majority Hoklo.  It is rural Hsinchu which are dominated by Hakkas.  This is expecially true since the 1980s when Hsinchu emerged as a IT powerhouse which attracted a lot of IT personnel from Greater Taipei.   Most of this migration are of course Hoklo.

I am still doing all sorts of data analysis based on township election data.  In the meantime the first post-election DPP power struggle is already emerging now that the DPP has capture a majority in the legislature.  It involves who will be the Speaker of the House.  There are three DPP candidates vying for the spot and none seems to be backing down.  They are

蘇嘉全 (Su Chia-chyuan) - former County magistrate of Pingdong County (where Prez election Tsai is from) who ran in 2010 for Mayor of Taichung and losing narrowly just like Tsai did for New Taipei City in the same year.  He ran as Tsai's running mate in 2012 in a losing effort.  He was elected on the DPP Party List in 2016 as a MP for the first time.  He is very close to Tsai and is really Tsai's candidate.  But he has never been a MP before so this poses a problem.

陳明文 (Chen Ming-wen) - was a KMT MP and leader of the pro-KMT Lin faction of Jiayi back in the 1990s.  Jiayi County politics up until 2001 was a de facto 3 party system where we had the pro-KMT Lin faction, pro-KMT Huang faction and DPP.  When Chen led his Lin faction to defect over the DPP in 2001 in order to finish off the Huang faction it lead to a realignment in Jiayi County where Chen became the dominate politician in Jiayi politics.  Chen was then DPP county magistrate for Jiayi County then handed that role to another Lin faction politician and he resumed being an MP.  His main selling point is that is that he can deliver the votes for the DPP in Greater Jiayi.  He could also be a bridge toward working with the KMT since his Lin faction still contains some KMT members, including his own brother. 

柯建銘 (Ker Chien-ming) - Founding member of DPP and a MP since 1992 representing Hsintsu City which tilts Pan-Blue.  Has deep roots in the DPP caucus and things equal should win the largest support in the DPP caucus if it was a free and fair vote.

The issue emerging is that Tsai clearly wants Su but the DPP legislative caucus seems to prefer Ker.  There were some attempts to work out a deal to prevent a DPP civil war by getting a consensus candidate which failed and it was decided that there will be a DPP caucus vote.  Ker is pushing for such a vote since he would most likely have the advantage although the pro-Tsai MPs might converge on Su while the non-Tsai bloc in the DPP might split the vote between Ker and Chen.  Tsai is still trying to talk Ker and Chen to back down which seems possible for Chen and unlikely for Ker.  A last minute move seems to be the powerful New Tide faction of the DPP seems to have moved to back Su instead of Ker.  In theory there will be a vote tomorrow in the DPP caucus but behind the screens talks are continuing.  If Ker and Chen back down before of pressure from Tsai and a result of arm-twisting of DPP MPs it could create friction on the long run between DPP caucus and Tsai. 

I am mostly done with my township by township analysis and will be posting various interesting aggregate data.   Label each township with different tags.  Each township is labeled "Urban" "Semi-urban" or "Rural."  Also I do PVI labeling as well at the township level.   I call all townships where it is Pan-Blue 2016 PVI +6 or higher "2016 Deep Blue", 2016 PVI +6 to PVI O I call "2016 Light Blue", 2016 PVI 0 to -6 I call "2016 Light Green" and I call 2016 PVI -6 or lower "Deep Green."

It has been the trend that the population shifts over the last couple of decades has been more favorable to Pan-Blues.  Meaning the "Deep Blue" and "Light Blue" townships tend to gain in terms of relative population.  We see the same thing this time around as well.
          
                                                       2012 to 2016                 1996 to 2016
                                                     Voter roll growth              Voter roll growth
"2016 Deep Blue" townships                4.46%                           30.11%  
"2016 Light Blue" townships                5.65%                           44.66%
"2016 Light Green" townships             3.33%                            32.23%
"2016 Deep Green" townships             2.03%                            19.72%

Here the trend is clear.  Blue townships, especially "Light Blue" which are usually are Northern Urban centers is continuing to gain relative population while Green townships,  especially "Deep Green" which are usually Southern rural townships, is losing relative population.  The demographics of PVI tends to be in Blue's favor in terms of trend and this seems to continue in 2016.

Of course the pan-Blues were beaten badly.  As I mentioned before this seems to be a function of the collapse of Pan-Blue turnout where around 25% of the Pan-Blue voting bloc did not show up at the polls.  Looking at turnout numbers seems to indicate this

                                                       2012 turnout          2016 turnout           fall
"2016 Deep Blue" townships                73.49%                 64.62%               -8.87%
"2016 Light Blue" townships                74.79%                 66.74%               -8.05%
"2016 Light Green" townships              75.23%                 67.46%               -7.77%
"2016 Deep Green" townships              73.88%                 66.13%               -7.76%

The turnout falloff is the largest in Deep Blue regions.  Of course the nature of this Pan-Blue turnout drop off is different in different regions which I will explore further later.   Anyhow this drop-off obviously lead to swings against Pan-Blue which is greater in Deep Blue townships since the turnout drop-off is greater there.
  
                                                       2012 Pan-Blue          2016 Pan-Blue         Swing  
                                                             Vote                        Vote                                                    
"2016 Deep Blue" townships                67.09%                 54.81%              -12.27%
"2016 Light Blue" townships                57.57%                 45.87%              -11.70%
"2016 Light Green" townships              51.35%                 40.41%              -10.91%
"2016 Deep Green" townships              41.84%                 32.35%               -9.49%

As for how swings took place at the Deep Blue to Deep Green levels it would useful to look at the Pan-Blue and Pan-Green votes in 2012 and 2016 in terms of vote share of the total electorate which would take into account turnout drops.

                                                          2012                  2016
                                                   Pan-Blue Vote       Pan-Blue vote            Dropoff
"2016 Deep Blue" townships              48.96%             35.42%                 -13.54%
"2016 Light Blue" townships              42.76%             30.61%                 -12.15%
"2016 Light Green" townships            38.36%             27.28%                -11.08%
"2016 Deep Green" townships           30.65%              21.39%                 -9.26%

On the Pan-Green side we have vote share as a percentage of the entire electorate

                                                          2012                  2016
                                                   Pan-Green Vote       Pan-Blue vote         Growth
"2016 Deep Blue" townships              24.02%             28.30%                  4.28%
"2016 Light Blue" townships              31.52%             35.23%                  3.71%
"2016 Light Green" townships           36.35%              39.34%                 3.00%
"2016 Deep Green" townships           42.61%              43.89%                 1.28%

Of course if we look at it the decline of the Pan-Blue vote and rise of the Pan-Green vote a a percentage of the 2012 Pan-Blue vote we get

                                                       Pan-Blue              Pan-Green
                                                       Decline                   Rise
"2016 Deep Blue" townships            -27.65%               8.74%              
"2016 Light Blue" townships            -28.41%               8.68%                  
"2016 Light Green" townships          -28.88%              7.82%                
"2016 Deep Green" townships          -30.21%              4.18%

Which makes the picture clear.  In  "2016 Deep Blue" "2016 Light Blue" "2016 Light Green" townships around 28% of the 2012 Pan-Blue vote failed to vote Pan-Blue with around 8% of that vote voting Pan-Green and the remaining 20% did not turn out.  In "2016 Deep Green" the swing toward Pan-Greens is smaller at 4% but 26% of the Pan-Blue vote failed to turn out.  Of course this is net swing and does not take into account of the real increase in youth turnout which mostly went to Pan-Greens.  So these implied Blue-Green swing are exaggerated a bit.

One of the reason why the Pan-Blue turnout fell while the Pan-Green turnout held up other than the obvious disastrous second KMT term of 2012-2016 are the balance of fears on Unification versus Independence.  Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s where were great fear of Pan-Blue voters that a DPP regime will provoke the PRC by a push toward independence. With the rise of economic integration between Mainland China and Taiwan Province since the early 2000s and the fact that DPP has moved away from Taiwan Independence as a platform this fear has gone away.  The fear on the Pan-Green side has risen that Taiwan Province will be absorbed by the PRC has only risen since 2008.  A good example is a recent poll that asked ROC voters BOTH on the issue of Unification versue Independence AND what is likely to take place in the future.

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It has

Unification           16.1%
Independence      46.4%
Go either way      37.5%

But when asked what is likely to take place in the future it has

Unification          49.7%
Independence     35.9%
Status Quo         14.4%

This poll overall I think overestimates Taiwan Independence support as the long time series by the ROC government Mainland Affairs Council tend to show about a 50/50 split between those that would consider Unification and those that prefer Independence but the relative data is quite illustrative.  In fact almost 40% of those that favor Independence feel Unification is the most likely future.  This fear clearly is driving the Pan-Green turnout from not falling in a non-competitive race and driving youth turnout up for Pan-Greens.   

Now that the new Tsai/DPP regime has been in power for 4 months now it would be interesting to give an update on where things are.  The best way to describe how the new regime in the  is doing is "bungling to catastrophic."  A series of unforced policy and administrative errors has shown up the DPP as unprepared for total power (the last DPP regime of 2000-2008 was really power sharing as the Pan-Blues had a narrow legislative majority the entire period.)  

If anything this is NOT helping the KMT as much as it should as negative memories of the last KMT administration are fresh in the voter minds so the rapid fall in DPP support has not translated into significant increased party support for the Pan-Blues even as it gives a boost to KMT party approval.  This gives the DPP regime a chance if it can recover lost ground by the end of the year before support start finally increasing for the KMT.

As a result the DPP has lost 9 local by-elections in a row since coming to power (6 of them they did not bother nominating a candidate) and won 1 by-election narrowly in deep green township.  Taking into account the pan-Blue bias in local elections these local by-elections seems to imply that Blue/Green support should be at near parity at an all ROC level even if the polls still has KMT still behind.

Pollster TISR which has a slight pro-Green tilt has historical approval rating index for DPP and KMT from 2006.  They added the CCP recently.  The graph is what things look like as the DPP came into power in May 2016

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The latest approval rating index is DPP 48 KMT 40 CCP 30.  

If you look at the graph, the disastrous DPP second term of 2004-2008 has driven KMT approval index to the low to md 50s by the 2008 election with DPP at low 30s.  Once the KMT came into power in 2008 the trend reversed as memories of the DPP regime begin to fade plus the pressures of incumbency for KMT.  The 2008 global financial crisis also hurt the KMT as it pushed the economy into deep recession.  So the KMT approval rating index fell to high 40s by 2009 and mid 40s by 2010.  While the DPP rose to mid 30s by 2009 and low 40s by 2010.  Parity was mostly reached by 2011.

Now about being in power for 4 months DPP already fell to 48 which is consistent with the KMT by the end of 2008 but without a world financial crisis and deep recession.  The KMT is already up to low 40s within 4 months of being in the opposition whereas the DPP had to wait 2 years of being in the opposition to get to low 40s in approval index.    The KMT approval index is now the highest since early 2013 when things started to fall apart for the KMT second term of 2012-2016.  The CCP approval index is also record high but that might be just part of increased negativity toward DPP.  

When the Tsai regime came into power I certain she would win reelection in 2020 although I felt that the KMT recovery at the local and legislative level and given a pan-Blue bias in the way the legislative  districts  are drawn the Pan-Blues would get near parity with Pan-Greens in 2020 in the legislature.  Now if Tsai does not turn things around very soon I would say Tsai's chance of reelection is even money now with the Pan-Blues having a solid chance at recapturing legislative majority in 2020.

A ROC version of the RCP average of Prez Tsai approval rating.  This average has too many pro-Green pollster so the real average would be somewhat worse than this.    But the trend is clear.  Obama, in comparison, did not reach parity in approval-disapproval until 2010, almost 1.5 years after coming into office. 

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Of course most of the unforced errors mostly came from the Cabinet so the approval for PM Lin has collapsed to 32/47.  An that is an average that has a pro-Green bias.

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Now, Lin is pro-Green but fairly moderate and not a member of the DPP so DPP and for sure Deep Green voter have very little loyalty to him.    Based on these numbers Lin's will most likely go soon, mostly likely early 2017.  But if he is replace with someone with a Deep Green background then Tsai might be conceding political middle ground to the KMT.  

Since Tsai won the election, the commies have been trolling her almost non-stop.

They got other countries to deport Taiwanese telemarketing fraudsters to Commieland, thus putting her in a lose-lose situation.

Taiwan's tourism sector has crashed due to the chill from its largest natural market.

The commies invited mayors of counties/cities which voted KMT for a conference, and announced their areas won't be economically penalized. They implied if the deep green southern counties elect KMT mayors, their fruit exporters will benefit.

Taiwan wasn't invited to this year's ICAO conference, with the commies openly admitting it's because Tsai doesn't accept the 1992 consensus.

Yep, this is all par for the course.  The reason Tsai and Lin approval ratings are sinking is stems from the fact that their 2016 election campaign promised economic and diplomatic status quo with the PRC without having to accept the 92 Consensus.   When it turned was obviously not true (like in Mainland China tourist numbers) the DPP regime was trying to cover it out by claiming that there was no fall in tourism which then was just proven wrong.  The way out is for Tsai the run a Deep Green regime much like Chen did after 2002 when he had to turn that way to improve on his poor ratings.  It is a way to make sure of about 40-45% support which is enough to  survive on instead of trying to please everyone and expand the DPP base.   KMT Prez Lee also effectively polarized the electorate against the PRC in 1995 to ensure a landslide re-election in 1996.  Main problem here is the PRC is significantly more powerful than it was in 2002 and dramatically more powerful than it was in 1995.  The diplomatic and more importantly economic blow back could be quite large on ROC.    I figured on the long run this was where the Tsai regime was headed after it was clear it could not create a permanent DPP majority based on the 2016 election victory.  I was just surprised how quickly it took place.  It is a rerun of the Chen regime of 2000-2008 but in fast forward mode.

I think the PRC has been pretty tame so far just hitting Tsai in places where it does not really hurt.  When the PRC runs out of patience with Tsai they might hit the direct flight and trade links that PRC has with ROC which was created based on the 92 Consensus after KMT regime took over in 2008.   Doing so would create significant damage to the ROC economy and most likely send it into a deep recession.

But is the KMT even capable of playing its part in a Third United Front? It doesn't seem particularly united or motivated.

No, its is unlikely it can play that role.  It is too divided internally between different blocs of interests ranging from anti-DPP political and economic interests but devoid of Chinese national identity to white collar workers that prefer the stability  of KMT rule to anti-CPP Chinese nationalists to pro-CCP Chinese nationalists.  I think the only way out of the PRC-ROC trap is for the PRC regime to evolve into a more pluralistic regime with competitive local elections and along with greater economic interrogation Chinese unification achieved by some sort of Confederate relationship between Mainland China and Taiwan Province.

The alternative is some sort of future military invasion/pressure which leads to the direct control of Taiwan Province by PRC at great diplomatic and perhaps economic cost.  The thing that is getting concerning about the current status is that the PRC regime and increasing the population does not seem to care anymore about the "hearts and minds" of the population of Taiwan Province.   They way they see it is they bent backwards to give diplomatic and economic concessions to ROC under the KMT regime of 2008-2016 and the result was a landslide election victory for a pro-Taiwan Independence party.   They read this as "nice guys finish last."  So fine, they are beginning to reason, there is not need to be nice.  What is not appreciated, I think, by the PRC regime is that while these economic concessions were quiet  significant, given the fact that the PRC economy, at least for advance provinces, have moved up the economic chain quite quickly to directly compete with Taiwan Province, this means that most of the benefits only accrue to certain economic sectors and the top 1% on ROC with much of that wealth often being re-invested right back on Mainland China.  The average middle class Joe on Taiwan Province saw no real net economic benefit from greater economic integration with the Mainland.

  

It's really telling that half of Taiwanese view reunification as inevitable, even if the large majority of them ideally prefer independence. I recall another recent poll which indicated that while the vast majority still have a negative opinion of the CPC, the youngest adults have the highest positive opinions.

Keep your eye on the Vatican. All of the RoC's diplomatic partners are insignificant, except the Holy See. And most of these partners are majority Roman Catholic - if the Holy See switches recognition, all these will quickly switch, and the remaining partners will see no reason to continue relations with the RoC. There have been rumours of an imminent deal regarding the election of Catholic bishops for a while - seeing how <1% of Chinese are Catholic, this could be done without too much fuss.

It's funny how the road to Chinese reunification passes through...Rome.

Tsai approval ratings falling in to the low 30s high 20s after being in power for 6 months.

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DPP approval also falling.

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DPP approval index below 50 while KMT approval index closing in on 40.  Relative approval ratings are approaching early 2013 levels.  CCP approval index closing in on 30 at around where DPP was in 2008 when DPP was thrown out of power in a landslide.

Of course the DPP is falling apart too quickly for KMT to take advantage of.  It will be 2-3 years before the anti-KMT negatively from 2012-2016 wears off.   The Trump upset is pushing rumors that pro-Blue Foxconn CEO 郭台銘(Terry Gou) might run as an independent in 2020 with KMT support to oppose Tsai on the premise that KMT support would not be enough to capture the entire anti-Tsai anti-DPP vote.  Recent polls has Guo winning in a landslide 62-24 against Tsai.

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Methinks Taiwan will cease to exist as an separate entity sooner rather than later...

You are a bit too gleeful about this.

Not gleeful, just cynical (hence my username). The vast majority of Taiwanese support the "status quo", but the status quo is in itself constantly changing. And not in their favor.

TVBS just did a bunch of polling in every ROC county/city to survey the approval rating of the local county magistrate/city mayor over a two month period.   It also had vote ID breakdowns for each county/city and as expected the Blue camp is making a comeback relative to its disastrous performance in the Jan 2016 election.  It is interesting to look at where the comeback is taking place.  It seems in traditional pan-Blue urban areas the Blue camp is still polling badly but in rural areas the KMT/Blue support is coming back.  A breakdown below is interesting

                                    Jan 2016                 Nov/Dec 2016
                                Green lead  over          Green lead over
                                    Blue vote                   Blue party ID
City/County
Taidong County               -11%                           -11%    (Deep Blue rural county)
Hualian County               -20%                          -19%    (Deep Blue rural county)  
Yilan County                  +24%                           +3%    (Light Green rural county - trending Blue)
Keelong City                     -4%                            -3%     (Deep Blue urban city)
Taipei City                       +4%                             0%     (Light Blue urban city)
New Taipei City              +10%                           -1%     (Bellwether semi-urban city)
Taoyuan City                   +2%                           +3%    (Light Blue semi-urban city)
Hsintsu City                    +2%                            +1%    (Light Blue urban city)
Hsintsu County              -15%                           -21%    (Deep Blue rural county)
Miaoli County                   -9%                           -12%   (Deep Blue rural county)
Taichung City                 +10%                            0%    (Bellwether semi-urban city - trending Green)
Changhua County          +13%                           +2%   (Bellwether rural county - trending Green)
Nantou County               +4%                            -7%     (Light Blue rural county)
Penghu County               +2%                            -3%    (Light Blue rural county - trending Blue)
Yunlin County               +27%                           +6%    (Deep Green rural county)
Jiayi City                       +20%                           +5%    (Light Green urban city)
Jiayi County                  +30%                         +18%    (Deep Green rural county)
Tainan City                   +35%                         +18%    (Deep Green semi-urban city)
Kaoshiung City             +27%                          +16%    (Deep Green semi-urban city)
Pingdong County          +27%                          +17%    (Deep Green rural county)
Jinmen County             -64%                            -55%    (Very Very Deep Blue rural county)

The places where the KMT/Blues are coming back are not in their traditional urban centers where they seems to be stuck at the same levels as back in Jan 2016.  Same is true for most Deep Blue rural counties.  Instead they are gaining in bellwether, light Green and deep Green rural or semi-urban counties.  I guess the pro-Blue voters in metropole area's disappointment in the second KMT Ma administration have not worn off yet while the bungling of the new Tsai DPP administration are driving away independent and lean Green voters in Green and bellwether regions.  

In many ways this poll might understate the fall of Greens in Deep Green counties since the Deep Green counties were polled back in late Oct and Tsai's fortunes has fallen since then.

These sort of numbers seems to imply that if the election were held today it would be Green/Blue 52/48 versus Green/Blue 56/44 back in Jan 2016.  The 2000-2016 long term trend Green/Blue balance has historically been 45/55.   The KMT recovery will be slow and most likely take a couple of more years to even think about getting back to that sort of level, if ever.  I suspect we are in a era where it is more like 50/50 long term between Green/Blue or at best 48/52 advantage for Blues.

Tsai approval rating after 1 year of taking office from TVBS poll.  Comparison to Lee Chen and Ma after they were elected and took office after 1 year.

5/2017   Tsai (DPP)   28/56
5/2009   Ma (KMT)    38/41 ->won re-election in 2012 with a 6 point margin despite Pan Blue splinter
5/2001   Chen(DPP)   41/46->won re-election in 2004 with a 1 point margin against united Pan Blues
5/1997   Lee (KMT)    37/48 -> KMT lost power in 2000 due to split of the Pan-Blue vote

Comparison between 2017 and 2009

Is the Ma administration (2009) taking us in the right direction 48/29
Is the Tsai administration (2017) taking us in the right direction 38/36

2009 Partisan breakdown Pan-Blue/Pan-Green   38/15
2017 Partisan breakdown Pan-Blue/Pan-Green   32/33

In theory Tsai should be very vulnerable in 2020.  The current weak and divided state of the KMT and the possibly that the Pan-Blues might have a splinter candidate means Tsai is still a slight favorite to win re-election in 2020 assuming NPP does not run their own candidate in a splinter of the Pan-Green vote.

Pan-blue will likely to nominate Wu Denyih (ex-VP and probably next KMT leader) than not and lose by a couple points (around 6-8 points).
Soong is not energetic to run for another election.
In this scenario, KMT will pick up Taipei, Taoyuan, Hsinchu (county with city), Miaoli and Nantou (Wu's home-boy edge), compared to 2016.
If DPP nominate their candidate for 2018 Taipei mayoral election (that candidate is tipped to lose), KMT could actually draft Dr Ko to be their independent presidential candidate.

In 2018 KMT will hold onto all their currently controlled administrations, whilst picking up Taipei, Yilan and Chiayi city.

Sounds about right.  Taipei would really depend on if DPP nominates their own candidate to opposed the pro-DPP Ko to make it a three way race in which case a KMT is a shoe-in.  If it is DPP backed Ko vs the KMT it would depend on the KMT candidate.  Current New Taipei City mayor Chu running here would make the race lean KMT else it is really a tossup if it is Ko vs KMT.

New Taipei City would be a risk for the KMT to lose if they do not come up with a good candidate although the DPP is struggling to come up with a good candidate.  One wildcard for both Taipei City and New Taipei city is if DPP Tainan mayor Lai were to run in either Taipei City or New Taipei City.  Lai is seen as a threat to Tsai and Tsai is trying to push Lai to run in either city in 2018 to make sure he does not challenge Tsai for the 2020 DPP nomination.  The less popular Tsai becomes the less likely Lai will run.

It would awesome if in 2018 Taipei city it becomes Ko (independent) vs Chu (KMT) vs Lai (DPP).  It would be a true clash of titans with all 3 possible future Prez candidates in 2020 or 2024.  It would be just in 2010 Taipei City when we had Chu vs Tsai.

Yilan is slowing trending KMT and will be an open seat so it would be ripe for the KMT to win.

Chiayi city has a first term DPP incumbent that seems unpopular so in a good KMT year the KMT could win.  The same is true for Changhua County which to be fair is trending slowing toward DPP over time.

In theory Taoyuan City, Hsintsu City, Keelong City are pro-Blue cities that could go KMT but with fairly popular first term DPP incumbents the KMT might have to wait until 2022 to recapture them.   Out of these 3 Keelong might be the best shot for the KMT but I still rate it as below 50%

The win-loss for KMT in 2018 comes down to Taipei City and New Taipei City.  If the KMT can win both then it is still in the running in 2020. Else Tsai should be able to win in 2020.

Wu has a high floor and but low ceiling.  If it is Tsai vs Wu in 2020 1-on-1 I think right now Tsai wins 52-48.  I agree Soong will most likely not run (which really spells the end for PFP.)  The KMT Chairperson race which the first round is this weekend could lead to a KMT civil war and potentially a rebel KMT candidate that is not Soong in 2020.  Only way out is for Wu to win in a convincing manner (more than 50% of the vote this weekend.) It is for that reason I back Wu in the KMT Chairperson race.

There is no way KMT would draft Ko for its candidate.  If Ko were to lose the 2018 Taipei mayor election it is likely that Ko might run as an independent in 2020 with unpredictable results but mostly to the benefit of the KMT.  This is one reason why despite worsening relationship between Ko and the DPP chances are DPP will not run a candidate in Taipei City in 2018.

The independent that the KMT might nominate in 2020 would be Terry Gou of Foxconn.  It is clear in a 1-on-1 race he would beat Tsai.  Main issue is: will he run and will the KMT be desperate enough to nominate Guo.  If Wu win the KMT chairperson election this weekend in a decisive fashion then KMT will nominate Wu in 2020 assuming 2018 goes reasonably well for the KMT.  If it is Hao that wins the KMT might go with Guo especially Hao has as part of his platform that he will not run in 2020 if he were to win the KMT chairperson race and would instead draft Guo.  If 2018 goes badly for KMT then KMT might have no choice but to draft Guo to give Tsai a real fight.

Of course as much as Tsai is turning off the unification bloc the radical pro-independence bloc are equally unhappy that Tsai is not pushing the Taiwan Independence line when they see time running out before the PRC gets too powerful.  The radical Taiwan Independence bloc might run their own candidate in 2020 if they see Tsai as unpopular and perhaps a lost cause.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuomintang_chairmanship_election,_2017

Kuomintang chairmanship election first round is this weekend 5/20.  If no one wins 50% then it moves to a second round with the top two vote winners.

Right it is a 3 way race between Wu (former PM and VP) vs Hung (current Chairperson) vs Hau (former Taipei mayor).  It seems Wu has the upper hand and could just win on the first round.  If radical unification bloc Hung wins then KMT might face a split and rebellion from the KMT moderate faction.  If will be Wu vs Hung or Wu vs Hao in the second round then it really becomes a 50/50 race.  If Wu is to win he has to win on the first round.  I am backing Wu mostly on the premise that he is most likely to be able to united the party despite my own radical pro-unification leanings.

Well, here are my wild guesses:
--> Taipei city: Eric Chu is a fairly decent card, but I bet KMT will ultimately nominate ex-MP for Taipei's first congressional district, Ting Shou-chung. He accidentally lost his seat in 2016 due to Tsai's sweeping force territory-wide. In this case Taipei will be pure toss-up, but as Ko slowly has his stance trending away from DPP (he is actually a centrist), the ultra-pro-independence faction of DPP might not fully back him like 2014, and Ting will squeak out by 1 point.
--> New Taipei City: immediately after the 2016 elections, people thought that KMT was guaranteed to lose that seat. However, vice-mayor Hou Youyi smashed all DPP opponents (by >10 points) except William Lai (by -2 to +6). In the end, he might win a couple points (around 2-3 points) even if Lai runs.

KMT Chairperson election today.

Hau has a low floor but high ceiling but Hung has a high floor but low ceiling.  Wu clearly is ahead and the undecideds are mostly anti-Hung. Wu is calling on the undecided to vote for him to get him over the 50% mark the end the race.  Hau is saying that Wu will not win 50% and those who are voting for Hau in the first round for sure will most likely vote Hung in a Wu vs Hung second round  and the undecided should vote for him to make sure it is the inevitable second round is a Wu vs Hau race.

So it will either be
Wu    50
Hung 30
Hau   15

Or
Wu    35
Hau   30
Hung 30

I think the way the KMT members vote historically is toward a decisive result so the former scenario is much more likely. 

With half the vote (around 118K counted so far out of roughly 260K votes cast) in for KMT chairperson vote looks like Wu is way ahead and likely to win on the first round

Wu     52.5%
Hong  18.1%
Hau    17.9%
Han      5.3%
Dang    4.5%
Pang     0.8%

With around 160K out of 280K vote counted Wu is expanding his lead

Wu     53.6%
Hong  18.0%
Hau    16.9%
Han      6.0%
Dang    4.6%
Pang     0.9%

With around 234K out of 280K vote counted (it might end up being more than 280K) Wu has won for sure

Wu     53.4%
Hong  19.2%
Hau    16.1%
Han      5.9%
Dang    4.6%
Pang     0.9%

With around 270K out of 280K vote counted so it is pretty much over it is

Wu     52.8%
Hong  19.6%
Hau    16.3%
Han      5.9%
Dang    4.5%
Pang     0.9%

Hung vastly under-performed.   She won around 53K votes which is a lot less than the 79K she won in the 2016 KMT leadership by-election.   The minor candidates vote over-performed.  It is clear, just like I projected, the Wu-Hau marginal undecided voters all went to Wu pushing him over 50%.

In the end with around 273K votes it is

Wu     53.0%
Hong  19.5%
Hau    16.2%
Han      5.9%
Dang    4.5%
Pang     0.9%

Everyone seems to have accepted this decisive win by Wu as a clear mandate and there are no signs of any splits as a result of this race.  So the KMT passed the first step toward being a viable party in 2020.  The next test is to win by Taipei City and New Taipei City in 2018.  If they do not do that they are out in 2020 regardless of how unpopular Tsai might be.

CCP General Secretary Xi letter to Wu on his election victory

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Header: Central Committee of the China Communist Party

To Taipei: China KMT Central Committee Mr. Wu Dunyi:

I would like to congratulate you on the occasion of your election as Chairman of the KMT. Since 2008, the two parties have maintained a common political foundation and promoted the peaceful development of cross-strait relations. At present, the peaceful development of cross-strait relations is facing challenges and hopes that the two parties will adhere to the consensus on the well-being of the two sides and firmly oppose "Taiwan independence" and grasp the correct direction of peaceful development of cross-strait relations and struggle with the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Best of health

Chairman of the Central Committee of the China Communist Party Xi Jinping

May 20 2017



Wu's response is

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Header: Central Committee of the China KMT

To China Communist Party Central Committee General Secretary Xi Jinping

Thanks for the May 20 letter of congratulations.

In 1992, the two sides reached a "cross-strait adhere to the One-China principle, but for its meaning, the two sides agreed to use oral statements for each their own expression" on the basis of consensus, after years of efforts to promote institutionalized consultations, signed a number of agreements.  From tension to peaceful development, the effectiveness of this consensus is for all to see.

Now, cross-strait exchanges and communication channels have hindered, I will lead the comrades of the our party to assume the important task for the people of both sides for the well-being of life, rights and interests protection, social and economic exchanges, and cultural heritage innovation will be our goal going forward.

Looking forward to the future, we hope that the two parties will continue to deepen the "1992 consensus", promote cross-strait peace and institutionalization, mutual respect and tolerance, promote Chinese culture, promote cross-strait sustainable development and cooperation towards a broad open path.

Best of health

Chairman-elected of the China KMT Wu Dunyi

May 20 2017 (106th year of ROC)

Now after about a year into office Tsai will have a real "Leader of the Opposition" as Hung was bogged down by internal battles within the KMT.

This comes at a bad time for Tsai as the PRC is stepping up their pressure while DPP ex-Prez Chen is trying to rally the radical Taiwan Independence bloc as an internal pressure group against Tsai with support of NPP.  Of course Chen's agenda who is out of jail on medical leave is to force Tsai to grant Chen amnesty.  If Tsai is down to 25%-30% approval rating she might have no choice since that 25%-30% are die-hard Chen backers.  Of course doing so will alienate the other 65% of the electorate that are anti-Chen.

Yup. Wu will make KMT more viable than Hung, who is pro-unification diehard. Her ideology is very toxic to genuine Taiwanese who would prefer autonomy to reunification.

Ex-President Chen is too fragile to make a third run for office. What the radical pro-independence bloc could do is to rally around Tsai or blow up the entire bloc with DPP by nominating their own candidate. Of course, any of their candidates will be marginalized, but they all have a floor of around 7-8%. Some include Chen Chimai, MP for territory-wide at-large constituency and the forerunner for mayor of Kaohsiung (to succeed 3-term 'flora lady' Kiku Chen).

Chen's goal is not to run again for Prez but to leverage his pull with the radical pro-independence bloc to pressure Tsai to grant amnesty.  Of course Tsai cannot do this especially when her polling number are low or else she would be seen as throwing her lot in with the Deep Green pro-Independence bloc and lose her pull on the Light Green and Light Blue voters.  The time for her to do this was when she had high approval ratings a year ago when doing so would be more seen as an attempt to defuse a controversial issue.  The DPP now is split between three blocs (the Deep Green Chen faction, the Tsai faction and New Tide.)  The Chen bloc clearly is going after Tsai to get their share of the ruling spoils when New Tide switches back and forth between these two blocs.

The word on the political rumor-mill is that Lai who is seen as the de facto leader New Tide faction will run in either Taipei or New Taipei mayoral race in 2018  if Tsai is above 30% approval rating and below 50% disapproval rating.  If she is in worse shape then that then New Tide will have written off Tsai as having a good shot at re-election in 2020 and would back Lai to challenge her for the DPP nomination in 2020.  This rumor sounds logical but I think seems unusual.  New Tide faction rise to power within DPP is similar to the Japan Tanaka faction in the 1974-1989 period which is not seek the top position (LDP President/PM in Japan and DPP Chairman/President for ROC) but instead be kingmaker and grow the faction power through these deals.  It seems unlike New Tide faction to try to grab the top spot for itself and if it were to do so would represent a fundamental shift in the balance of power in the DPP.

The reason that Lai might not run in Taipei City and New Taipei City mayors, I suspect, more stem from the fact that recent polls show that Lai would lose the top tier KMT candidates in both races.  Lai seems to see himself more as a 2024 DPP Prez candidate if he does have such ambitions so losing prematurely in 2018 would damage his brand especially when DPP fortune are on paper on the ascendancy and the DPP candidate is expected to win.  This is unlike 2006 when Hsieh ran and lost for Taipei Mayor  and in 2010 when Tsai ran and lost in New Taipei City while Su ran and lost in Taipei City.  In 2006 and 2010 DPP fortunes were seen as low so DPP top guns like Hsieh Tsai and Su running in pro-KMT cities were seen within DPP as an act of sacrifice to push up the DPP vote share and tie down KMT resources away from other pro-DPP cities/counties.  But after 2014 and 2016 the political map has been re-calibrated and the expectations within DPP is for DPP to win in both Taipei City and New Taipei city if a top tier candidate like Lai were to run so if he lost that would ruin his chances in 2020 and 2024.

The only outlook for him not to be dumped so early is to become the PM.

Global Views Monthly annual survey of mayor/county magistrate approval rating.

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One can look at the approval ratings to derive a 2018 projection.  If the incumbent is running for re-election then an approval rating of 40-43 need to have it to be tossup.  If it is an open seat then an approval rating of the incumbent of 50-53 is needed for the seat to be a tossup.  Of course the PVI of the city/county will also shift the rating.   If so the KMT is looking in 2018 to pickup Taipei City, Jiayi City, and Yilan County.  

The KMT is in danger of losing the open seat of New Taipei City although it seems less and less likely.  KMT could in theory also lose the open seat of Hsinchu County which has a massive KMT lean.  The problem is one of the two local KMT factions has joined forces with DPP so KMT might have a fight on its hands.  This similar to Jiayi County where back in the 1980s it was a very strong KMT county.  But the KMT Lin faction broke with the KMT Huang faction back in the late 1990s and joined forces with the DPP and over 1999-2004 turned a lean KMT county to a solid DPP county.  History might repeat itself in Hsinchu County.

Yilan county had the DPP incumbent stepped down to join the DPP cabinet at the central government level.  But it was going to be an open seat that the overall approval rating of DPP in Yilan was not positive so it is lean KMT despite the PVI rating of DPP+6.

Overall DPP is strong at the local level despite falling ratings of the DPP at the national level.  Kaoshiung and Tainan county local DPP is very popular and should easily win these two open seats.  Popular DPP incumbents in lean KMT cities like Keelong City, Taoyuan City, and Hsinchu City mean that the KMT will have to wait until 2022 to recapture those cities.  If the DPP incumbent in swing county Taichung City ratings continues to fall the KMT might have a chance there as well.

                                 Incumbent   Open Seat     2017 Approval     PVI        Rating  

Special municipality
Taipei City                   Pro-DPP           No                  42.9           KMT+6    Lean KMT
New Taipei City             KMT              Yes                  55.4           KMT+2    Lean KMT
Taoyuan City                DPP                No                  70.5           KMT+5    Solid DPP
Taichung City               DPP                No                  49.3           KMT+0    Lean DPP
Tainan City                  DPP                Yes                  74.7           DPP+11   Landslide DPP
Kaoshiung City            DPP                Yes                  72.0           DPP+7   Landslide DPP

Taiwan Province
Keelong City                DPP                No                   60.1           KMT+8   Lean DPP
Hsinchu County           KMT               Yes                  45.0           KMT+14  Lean KMT
Hsinchu City                DPP                No                   70.0          KMT+5    Solid DPP
Miaoli County               KMT               No                   53.1          KMT+11  Solid KMT
Changhwa County       DPP                No                   47.9          DPP+1     Lean DPP
Nantou County            KMT               No                   66.7          KMT+3    Solid KMT
Yunlin County             DPP                No                    51.5          DPP+8    Solid DPP
Jiayi County                DPP                Yes                   63.2          DPP+10  Solid DPP
Jiayi City                     DPP                No                    36.9          DPP+3    Lean KMT
Pingdong County         DPP                No                    62.5          DPP+8    Landslide DPP
Yilan County               DPP                Yes                   -----           DPP+6     Lean KMT
Hualian County         Pro-KMT           Yes                    73.5          KMT+20  Landslide KMT
Taidong County          KMT                No                    67.3           KMT+18  Landslide KMT
Penghu County          DPP                No                    55.8           KMT+4    Lean DPP

Fujian Province
Jinmen County         Pro-KMT           No                    64.6           KMT+41  Landslide KMT    
Lianjian County         KMT                No                    80.6           KMT+41  Landslide KMT

Tsai's approval ratings continue to collapse 

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Latest TVBS poll has her approval rating down to 21%.  It is a bunch of pro-DPP pollsters that are keeping her above 25% in the average curve.

What do you think has caused that?

Mainly her labour policy and her stance on China.

Several things.  First a labor law adjustment that she insisted on is not working out well.  Then there is the breakdown in her relationship with PRC that has economic impact.  Worst she had this breakdown and still holding what the pro-independence bloc consider moderate positions.  So she lost on both ends.  She did not give the Deep Green DPP any red meat in policy and rhetoric and at the same time there are some economic impact from the breakdown with PRC which drove away moderates.  There is also the ongoing drama related to civil servant/military pension reform which has polarized the civil servant/military bloc against her (they are most pro-KMT anyway.)  On this one there might be some hope for Tsai.  Once the reform passes she can at least claim some sort of policy agenda win.   Lastly she is on this bizarre drive for a stimulus package most of which contain spending on light rail in pretty much every city/county.  There seems little economic justification for this and even pro-DPP think tanks are coming out against it.  In response she is digging in and insisting on the DPP passing the package.   

How would a left of center politician do in Taiwan who was pro eventual unification?

Of course we also have the ex-Prez Chen situation.  The pro-Chen bloc (aka radical pro-independence bloc) are getting more strident in demanding that Tsai grant Chen amnesty.  Chen is on medical furlough   from jail although the public consensus outside the pro-Chen bloc is that Chen is mostly faking his medical problems and aided by pro-Chen doctors that spin their analysis to help to get him out of jail.  The pro-Chen bloc is pretty much demanding Tsai announce that Chen is innocent of all crimes he has been convicted off and then grant amnesty.  Of course this runs in face of all objection facts.  Tsai is pretty much dodging this issue is is making Chen and his bloc pretty steamed.  There are plans to create an national organization to push for Chen Amnesty with a target membership of 100K.  Most literature from this pro-Chen proto-organization are threatening to run their on candidates in 2018 and allude to taking down Tsai in 2020.

Tsai is falling into the trap of Ma.  Ma's 2008 landslide victory with 59% of the vote got gave him visions of grandeur and tried to peruse to policy path to win 65% for himself (not for the KMT mind you since simple political calculus shows that is impossible.)  This merely angered the Deep Blue bloc and paved the way for a KMT splinter PFP Soong candidacy in 2012 which Ma managed to beat back.  By not acting fact to grant Chen amnesty Tsai, who won an DPP unprecedented 56% of the vote in 2016, wanted keep winning independents to keep this sort of margin.   It does not seem to be working but for Tsai to grant Chen amnesty now she will be seen as weak and bowing to the Chen faction.

Worse for Tsai, DPP New Tide faction and Tainan City Mayor Lai has been making strange noises on relationship with PRC.  Tsai's hopes were that Lai would run in Taipei City or New Taipei City in 2018 as one he would be the only DPP politician that can be competitive there and two it would make sure he does not challenge Tsai for the DPP nomination in 2020.  Lai seems to have spurned that route and has been making speeches saying that while he still backed Taiwan Independence as a goal, he had to be practical and feel that it is "not a problem to accept" the 1992 Consensus  ("There is One China and both sides has their own interpretation what that One China is") and that he is, wait for it, "Pro-Bejing".  This moves him pretty close to the KMT position with the exception of his vague long term wish for Independence if possible.  Lai has been a pro-independence radical in the past just like Tsai historically has been a moderate on the independence question.  Now the roles are reversed mainly because it is clear that Lai want to use his new position as a basis to challenge Tsai in2020 if her poll numbers does not improve and he can make a case that she is doomed to defeat by the KMT while he can present himself as someone that can beat the KMT and get along with PRC.

Tsai is now facing at  3 front war.  One front against the KMT, one front against the radical Independence Pro-Chen Bloc, and one front from New Tide Lai who has taken on the mantel of the moderates.

For now that is a non starter.  There is no real Left on ROC.  There are Progressive factions in DPP and NPP but not Left.  The Unification-Independence issue has been so prevalent as a point of political cleavage that on economic issues in de facto terms KMT and DPP are both center-right despite their rhetoric.  Also understand that anti-Communism has been used by both Unification bloc and Independence bloc in the past  so both blocs has deep distrust of Communism which in term mean there is no real Left on ROC.  Given the current economic malaise any talk of unification will be seen as surrender and servitude to the PRC. 

In theory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Party_(Taiwan)

Holds this position.  This party has been around in the 1980s and is based on advocating for working class interests.  Several of my relatives (most of them fairly wealthy) were supporters of proto-Labor Party back in the 1980s.  But most of them drifted from a nominal pro-unification position to a very pro-Independence position and now are pro-DPP.  They are still pro-working class policies (which again confuse me all of them I consider members of landowning gentry but whatever) but are now within the DPP whose de facto policies are pro-capitalist class.    My drift has been in the opposite direction.  The Labor Party which is very pro-unification is on the fringe. 

What should be concerning for Tsai in the TVBS poll is the question: Is Prez Tsai leading us in the right direction where her numbers are under water 32/44.  Ma in his first turn 2008-12 had ups and downs in approval rating and there were cases where his approval ratings went down in the 20s for a while before bouncing back.  But on the question of "direction of Ma's leadership" he was always above water by at least 4%-5%.  It was only a few months into Ma's second term with several scandals breaking out among his associates  that that number went negative and stayed negative paving the way for 2014 and 2016 landslide defeats for KMT.  Going into the 2012 election Ma's numbers on "direction of leadership" was 44/30 and won re-election 51-45-4 (Ma-Tsai-Soong).  Going into 2016 elections Ma's numbers on "direction of leadership" was was 30/46 where the KMT suffered a historical landslide defeat.  Tsai's current numbers of 32/44 of seems a lot like Ma's numbers going into the 2016 election.  Tsai has to improve this number or hope the KMT brand is so bad that she can win a choice election in 2020.

Since the Unification-Independence is so prominent in ROC politics I though I share some historical data I kept on this.  The ROC Mainland Affairs Council has been doing polling every 3-4 months on this issue since the early 1990s and form the most consistent data set on this issue.  

The choices they give in their polling are
1) Unification now
2) Status quo now but Unification in the future      
3) Status quo now and decided on Unification/independence in the future
4) Status quo forever
5) Status quo now but Independence  in the future    
6) Independence now  
7) DK

I group these opinions into two sections: one that is open to unification in the future which I call Unification+ and one that rules out unification in the future which I call Independence+.  I put 3) as part of Unification+ since this group of people does not rule out unification and 4) as Independence+ since status quo forever is another way of ruling out unification.  For DK I use subjective opinion on the prevent political discourse at the time.  In the early 1990s the political discourse was very negative toward Independence so I count most of DK for the Independence+ bloc since DK is a way to hide their true views given the discourse.  Currently the discourse is very negative toward unification so I count most of DK for Unification+ by the same logic.  

Looking at the data for Unification+ and Independence+ once can see clear breaks at triggering events where the balance of the two changed.  I then created various eras based on these breaks and show the average values of Unification+ and Independence+ during these era.

Pre March 1996   Unification+ 68% Independence+ 32%  
                           Unification 25% Independence 13%

Then came the 1996 election campaign where the PRC directed their fire at KMT incumbent Lee which  in turn radicalized opinion against Unification.  The return of HK in July 1997 added to this anti-unification anxiety as complete takeover by PRC loomed as a risk

March 1996 to Sept 1997  Unification+ 57% Independence+ 43%
                                         Unification 23% Independence 20%

After the 1996 election campaign and return of HK to PRC receded from current events there was a convergence toward the mean on the  Unification/Independence issue

Sept 1997 to July 1998 Unification+ 62% Independence+ 38%
                                     Unification 22% Independence 18%

As the 1998 mid term elections approached it was clear that KMT might fall from power in 2000 which triggered greater debate on the Unification/Independence issue and radicalized the pro-Indepencnece bloc again.  The "Two State theory" stated by KMT Prez Lee and writing by his adviser and future President Tsai Ing-Wen in July 1999 which an attempt by Lee to try to capture the middle ground for the KMT also radicalized the pro-Independence bloc.  

July 1998 to April 2000 Unification+ 58% Independence+ 42%
                                     Unification 18% Independence 20%

The election of DPP Chen in March 2000 made Independence and the risk of war much more real which provoked a surge of anti-independence and pro-unification views

April 2000 to July 2002 Unification+ 63% Independence+ 37%
                                     Unification 20% Independence 18%

In 2002 as Chen looked forward to 2004 re-election it was clear that he was not able to win the middle ground.  So his only hope was to radicalized the pro-Independence bloc to a massive turnout in 2004 to attempt to win re-election.  As a result he introduced legislation for allowing referendum on public policy.  The debate around this topic and the KMT attempt to bloc this provoked the re-radicalization of the pro-Independence bloc.    

July 2002 to March 2008  Unification+ 58% Independence+ 42%
                                        Unification 14% Independence 22%
 
Chen's corruption scandals of 2005-2008 meant that the KMT was going to have a good year in 2008 and indeed Ma won by a landslide in March 2008.  Ma ran on a platform of economic integration with PRC which in turn raised further fear among moderates that he is policies will gut out ROC economically.  As a result pro-independence support further increased and for the first time Independence+ support exceeded Unification+ support.

March 2008 to  March 2014 Unification+ 49% Independence+ 51%
                                           Unification 10% Independence 23%

Ma tried to introduce legislation in 2014 for a services free trade pact with PRC.  This triggered the Sunflower movement to oppose what was seen by pro-Independence bloc as another sell out to the PRC and one more step in PRC taking over Taiwan Province.  As a result pro-Independence support increased a bit more

March 2014 to March 2016 Unification+ 47% Independence+ 53%
                                           Unification  9% Independence 25%    

DPP's Tsai was elected in Jan 2016 and started to reverse some of the Ma's policy agendas with respect to PRC.  As a result the surge in pro-independence support as a result of the Ma administration now receded as  Unification+ overtakes Independence+

March 2016 to now   Unification+ 51% Independence+ 49%
                                Unification 12% Independence 21%

Formosa e-paper poll (a pro-Green outfit although Formosa Polls is a somewhat more neutral pollster) has Pan-Blues almost caught up with Pan-Greens.  Pan-Blues had large leads in the past but were in a tie with Pan-Greens in the mid-2013 to mid-2014 period before Pan-Greens took the lead for good in mid-2014.  Now the two blocs are near parity again.

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It seems that Tsai has decided to take on current Tainan Mayor and a New Tide faction rising superstar Lai as the new PM dumping Tsai's favorite Lin in the process.  It is clear it is an attempt to lift her sagging approval numbers and, given her political vulnerability, form an alliance with New Tide.  Of course this means plans of having Lai run in the New Taipei City mayor election in 2018 is out and mostly handing that seat to the KMT.

By agreeing to this New Tide is taking a big chance and breaks from the New Tide tradition of being kingmaker only and never the king much like the role of the Tanaka faction in LDP in the 1980s Japan. New Tide seems to be gambling that Tsai is such poor shape that the New Tide and capture a good part of the power of the executive branch and that the KMT is so far from making a recovery from its 2014-2016 debacle that a Tsia-New Tide alliance can still beat back the KMT in 2020.

Any reason for this alliance is the rise of Taipei mayor Ko.  Ko had a very good run with a very successful 2017 Taipei Summer Universiade and his poll rating is rising.  He has also shifted, in rhetoric, to a much more pro-unification position despite his deep Green background.  Right now he is the only ROC politician that the PRC seems to want to do business with.  At this stage DPP will have no choice back to back Ko lest a 3 way race for Taipei City mayor in 2018 would not only push DPP to third place and also most likely hand the Taipei Mayor back to the KMT. 

There are signs that regardless of if Ko wins re-election in 2018 he might run as an independent in 2020 Prez elections. Ko seems to forming alliance with Pan-Blue PFP and and Pan-Green NPP.  PFP relationship with KMT has not improved since 2016 and NPP's alliance with DPP is mostly over with NPP poised to challenge DPP across the board in 2018.   2020 could be very interesting with the grand third force alliance Ko-PFP-NPP running against DPP's Tsia-Lai and KMT's Wu.  The DPP Chen faction might get into the act as well.  If the Ko candidacy can catch fire it might be a very close 3 way race in 2020 with something like  Wu (KMT) 35 Tsai (DPP) 35 and Ko (PFP-NPP) 30 and it being anyone's race.

In Taipei city nominal DPP ally Ko is pretty much nearing the breaking point with DPP.  Ko, who comes from a extreme pro-Taiwan Independence, has opportunistically taken on a pro-CCP position that even the KMT is afraid to take.  His strategy seems to be to take advantage of the DPP's fear of a KMT comeback in Taipei and then publicly humiliate DPP by taking pro-KMT and even pro-CCP positions to pull in the KMT vote.  Out of self respect the DPP is getting pretty close to cutting off Ko and run a DPP candidate in 2018 come hell or high heaven.

The result in 2018 in such a case could be volatile.  Most likely it would be

Ko     40
KMT  35
DPP   25

But if Ko continues to take on pro-KMT positions and the KMT does not run a strong candidate it could end up being

Ko    40
DPP  35
KMT  25

At this stage Ko is having it both ways. For the DPP voter he is the anti-KMT candidate, for the KMT voter he is the anti-Tsai candidate and for the Youth vote he is the non-politician tell it like it is candidate.  Ko is guaranteed at least a second place finish which poses a lethal threat to both KMT and DPP if either party becomes the third place candidate.  In such a case the logic of tactical voting would drive one of the two parties to a disastrous showing.   In theory right now that is the DPP but one cannot be sure in a 3 way race and would depend on the candidates.

Only way Ko can be beaten now is if somehow the race becomes

Ko     33
KMT  33
DPP   33

And last minute tactical voting works against ko.

If Ko loses re-election he will run in 2020 Prez race for sure.  Even if Ko wins it is very likely that Ko will run in 2020  if both Tsai and KMT have not gotten out of the dumpster in the polls. 

The DPP civil war in 嘉義縣 (Jaiyi County) is getting to farcical levels.    Jaiyi county used to be one of the most pro-KMT counties with the KMT Huang factions and KMT Lin factions against the DPP.  Then in 2001 Lin faction leader 陳明文 (Chen Ming-wen) broke with the KMT and took the Lin faction into the DPP with Chen becoming the County Magistrate of Jiayi.

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At the same time KMT MP 曾振農(Tseng Chen-nung) who had his own micro-faction within the KMT but is friendly with Chen also left the KMT to take a pro-DPP position.  Tseng soon left politics to return to business but arranged for his wife 張花冠 (Helen Chang) to take over his faction which she moved in DPP with Chang becoming a DPP MP.  Tseng himself passed away on a business trip in Cambodia in 2008 making Chang a widow.

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Chen and Chang became close political allies as these two KMT transplants pretty much took over the Jaiyi County DPP and repeatably beat the KMT Huang faction in elections post-2001.   Chen was Jaiyi County magistrate from 2001 to 2009 with Chang being a Jaiyi County MP during that period.  Chang then became  Jaiyi County magistrate in 2009 and is due to step down in 2018 while Chen became a MP in 2009 taking over Chang's position.  Chen in 2008 made the smart move of being the first to jump on the Tsai bandwagon.  As Chen's power grew over time conflict arose between Chen and Chang for the domination of the Jiayi County DPP.

Both Chen and Chang have separate candidates in mind for the DPP candidate for Jiayi County Magistrate in 2018.  As a result their cold war became a hot war.  The DPP tried to get them to reconcile and even arranged for both to appear at public meetings and rallies to try to put up a front of unity to no avail.  At a recent such rally a few days ago after Chen and Chang had a fairly public spat in a DPP high command meeting, Chen, at least according to him, tried to hug Chang in a sign of unity.

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Chang claims that Chen whispered sexually explicitly language in her ear, something Chen denies, while putting his hands around her which made her very unconformable. After a couple of days of criticizing Chen publicly  and Chen's wife coming out to apologize for her husband's not being sensitive to Chang's gender, Chang appeared this morning at ta police station in Jaiyi to file changes of sexual harassment on Chen.  She told the shocked police chief who is her subordinate that "I am not here as County magistrate but as a victim.  I am doing this on behalf of all women that has been sexually harassed but not willing to take it to the police.  They all should."  

So now we have the farce of the Jaiyi County magistrate filling charges of sexual harassment against the Jaiyi MP even though both are from the same party.  This is going to be fun.  If it goes on like this the KMT will have a shot of retaking Jaiyi County in 2018.

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At this stage, despite KMT really getting nowhere to being seen as a real viable alternative to DPP for 2020 the Pan-Blues and Pan-Greens are now at parity for the first time since early 2014.

After the 2008 KMT landslide it took until early 2013 to get to Pan-Blue/Pan-Green parity.  It look the DPP around 1.5 years to lose what it took 5 years for the KMT to lose.

Of course this was not done due to rise in KMT support but more in collapse in DPP support.

The soap opera of 嘉義縣 (Jaiyi County) continues.  After DPP County Magistrate 張花冠 (Helen Chang) filed sexual harassment charges against her fellow DPP MP 陳明文 (Chen Ming-wen).   Chang went on TV to attack Chen's wife 廖素惠 (Liao Su-Hui)

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Saying that Laio's defense and apologies of her husband set a very poor precedent on gender equity where her husband is not a "real man" and face up to his crimes and instead sends his wife to take the blame.

Of course Liao most likely saved  Chang's candidacy back in 2009 when  Chang was running against KMT's Huang faction leader 翁重鈞(Wong Chung-chun) in a neck-to-neck race for County Magistrate and the night before the election Liao joined her husband Chen who was current County Magistrate and also the campaign manager of Chang in an election rally and knelled to beg for votes for Chang and most likely won Chang her election.

Liao and Chang with DPP Chairperson Tsai (now ROC Prez) in 2009
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Same rally has Liao kneeling on live TV begging for votes for Chang
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Of course that was when Chen and Chang were close political allies.  

Liao in response referred to Chang as a vile women and that she always knew of Chang's true nature and held back on telling the truth about Chang because she wanted to support women in politics.  Liao said that Chang has very little respect of housewives her Liao and is an agent against true gender equity with her misandry.  She said she will be exposing Chang over time on Chang true nature with the truth about Chang.

Tsai's approval ratings had a bump by putting in Lai as PM.  Lai's tenure has been disappointing so far especially with labor law reform and now Tsai's approval rating is going down again to below 30%.

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TPOF which is actually a pro-Green polling outfit did now has PRC head Xi out polling Tsai in terms of approval rating.  Both out-polls Ma when he stepped down in May 2016.

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Approval index

Tsai Dec 2017  46.94
Ma  May 2016  41.64
Xi   Dec 2017   51.52

CommonWealth Magazine which does a very comprehensive annual poll (sort of like Pew) came out with interesting and bad numbers for Tsai. 

It has Tsai's approval/disapproval rating at 23.8/67.7
()

it also seems lower ratings for Tsai is increasing support for Unification

On the identiy issue of: Are you Taiwanese, Chinese or both we have
()

           Taiwanese     Chinese    Both   
2014       59.4            3.2        33.0
2015       61.9            4.6        28.2
2016       63.1            6.1        28.3
2017       61.6            6.9        28.2
2018       56.4            6.7        31.4


On the issue of Unification, Independence or status quo
()

          Independence       Independence       Status     Unification          Unification
               ASAP               as a goal                Quo        as a goal             ASAP
2014        5.57                   37.53                43.51           8.92               0.52
2015        8.59                   35.62                40.28           8.79               1.53
2016        6.27                   29.24                49.82           9.23               1.94
2017        6.13                   31.10                48.35           8.24               2.57
2018        4.76                   27.31                46.86         13.75               2.62


This is similar to the early of the the DPP Chen administration (2000-2008) where its bad start led to support for unification to rise and Independence to fall.    The Ma administration (2008-2016) also started with the 2008 crisis which made it unpopular and led to a surge in support for independence and decline in unification.   We are now seeing the same thing under the Tsai administration which is starting badly as well.

The good news for Tsai is that both Chen and Ma both recovered and won re-election in 2004 and 2012 respectively. 

The critical shift in unification-independence views was  the 2002-2006 period where Chen was able to bump up pro-Independence views with his provocative actions against the PRC knowing that he can go up to the line but over it and that the PRC will not attack.  So support for Independence increased during a DPP administration.  It does not seem that Tsai can replicate this mainly because the PRC economy of 2018 is around 4 times bigger than the PRC economy of 2002.  So the PRC of 2018 is 4 times more power than it was in 2002.  What Tsai is able to get away with respect to PRC is a lot more limited than Chen in 2002.