The issue isn’t with any party, but with the election system. Both the KMT and the DPP aren’t popular because the current first-past-the-post voting system means that the issue of national identity dominates over all other issues, meaning that voters sometimes are forced to vote for less desirable candidates simply because they are afraid of giving up on their position on that one key issue. This is what creates a permanent two-party oligarchy, and allows the parties to hijack the elections by overriding all other issues that voters would want to see a quick resolution to.
There have been a few scandals that rocked the DPP’s image, but even before that, while the DPP has been doing an unprecedented job in minimizing the effects of COVID on the economy and well-being of the people living here, attacks generated by Chinese backed capital has been relentless in creating an image that the DPP botched its COVID response, despite Taiwan being on par with New Zealand, Australia and Japan in most COVID prevention figures.
It isn’t surprising that it worked on KMT supporters, but it worked surprisingly well with the supporters of former Taipei City mayor Ke Wenje. Once the China backed propaganda started, Ke also jumped on the bandwagon and repeatedly stated that CDCC has been doing a terrible job, and he would have done much better. Especially after the China back propaganda began criticizing the CDCC for failing to acquire BNT/pfizer vaccine, even though the CDCC failed because China refused to let Taiwan acquire the vaccine from BNT, which Beijing hasn’t even granted regulatory approval for even now, 3 years later.
It’s a blatant political move, but I guess if you generate a massive sustained smear campaign across all social media, especially on PTT, facebook and Dcard, newly graduates and students will swallow that crap.