Who will win the LY election on December 11… And Why?
What will it mean for Taiwan?
What will a changed legislature try to do?
Any takers?
Also, the very real possibility is an outcome of neither the blue, nor the green camp having a majority, but relying on the independent LY members to get things done.
And please AC_Dropout and Cmdjing… How about NOT discussing running dogs, Japanese house slaves, and reunification???
I think it’ll turn into a big mess with more name-calling and charges being flung around and nothing will get done. Perhaps some more street protests and a chance for Taiwan to be “showcased” on international television for it’s “budding democracy.” 
The LY will be swept into power by the DPP-TSU coalition and the KMT and Chinese parties will be removed from power. It will be a great day to finally have a one party Taiwanese government.
I’m hoping for a Green landslide. But I don’t wnat to jinx anything by makignan actual prediction. I expected Lian to win last time, and we got Chen, so I think I’ll vote for KMT/PFP.
I have a side-question, but I’ll post that in a new thread.
Brian
I thought sure I voted for number 4, KMT/PFP/NP alliance retain their majority, but it still says zero.
(I pulled the poll because every time I tried to fix it, it kept giving “richardm controls all” as the winner. – Wolf)
I am really curious about the influence of factions on the upcoming legislative elections.
(Note: in this post, I use the word ‘factions’, as it is used in Taiwan to indicate local power groupings, not, as it is also used, for groupings within political parties).
Older (martial law era) analyses of Taiwan politics that I have read, stress the importance of local factional loyalty in determining voters’ choice in eloections.
In this old Taipei Times article written before the last legislative elections, the Taiwan specialist Bruce Jacobs, argues that (with the exception of Taipei City), voters make their coices based on the candidate, and more important what local power faction the candidate represents, rather than on the lines of political party affiliation. Thus, we can not expect the legislative elections to represent popular support for the various parties and their policies.
Here’s the article:
taipeitimes.com/News/edit/ar … /28/113483
Now I’m curious about how much the situation may have changed. Jacobs notes that educated Taipei City has largely rejected factional elctoral politics and now votes on party lines. I am wondering if in the last few years, this change may have started to spread to the rest of the country. The crackdown on vote-buying and local corruption (though far from complete) should have cut down on the power of the factions somewhat. Also, I suspect that in the last few years, party divisions have been stressed more heavily than before, and this may have made a difference.
In short, I wonder if Taiwan will be starting to vote along party lines in this coming election. What do you think?
Brian
Looking forward to some fine scraps. Who are the favourites for knocking heads together?
I predict the LY will have the following composition after the election:
DPP 94
KMT 60
PFP 29
TSU 22
NP 2
Others 18
Total 225
Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking and I’ll turn out to be well wide of the mark. But at least I’m all but certain to have got one of those numbers right!
[quote=“Bu Lai En”]What’st he difference between your poll options 1 and 4? Or 2 and 3?
[/quote]
The post was edited by me, and then the poll went haywire…
somebody help me!!!
(Yes, well…I deleted the entire poll, then built another one and the system memorized everything prior and just added my “new” options. So for now, just discussion is possible. Sorry H, I tried. – Wolf)
Hmmm… Down in Hakkaland, people mainly vote KMT on the national stuff, and here in Yangmei, we have an independent guy as mayor.
He is currently running for a LY seat, also as an independent. His election material consists of him standing in weedy fields, telling us what he wants to do - after having been mayor for 6 years.
However, an increased awareness of party politics is creeping in. There are quite a few people here voting for anybody, as long as he’s DPP, and the Waishengren tend to stick to their own parties. I remember the outlaws as being very much DPP too.
So political factions matter.
However, I see them more as tammany hall organizations, or parts of the criminal underworld here. we all know that Wang Jinping runs a faction in Gaoxiong, and that Luo Fuzhu has a faction in Xindian. (His son is running under the KMT banner in Xizhi or thereabouts).
Down here, you usually see some use of party colors, not that much for PFP or KMT, but always coloring scheme and logo for the DPP/TSU crew. So I would venture to guess that parties are becoming more important, at least in Yangmei.
Me again, sorry.
I noticed that his prediction that the LY election in 2001 would merely be a prelimenary indication of how things would be was far off. The parties held up as such, with legislators voting along party lines… Also, some of the figures he mentioned as examples of how little parties mattered (Shi Mingde and Xi Xinliang) were merely has-beens running under their own banner, after losing power struggles and the like.
Weirdly enough, it seens that the local factions appear to be more of a KMT/PFP thing, than a DPP hallmark.
Of course local factions are more of a KMT/PFP thing, they depend on them. Factions are not loyal thou, and can be buy out by money and resources. That didn’t matter before since KMT was always the government, diffferent story now. I hope these local factions can dispear all together in the near future.
I have nothing to add, since I live in Tainan, and everybody knows how they’re going to swing.
I disagree that local factions are necessarily more of a KMT/PFP thing, or that they necessarily rely on vote buying or corruption.
The way it works is that, especially in rural communities, you have local elites that are usually family based. Many people will vote for a respected member of the community who is in a position of power. In Taiwanese culture this extends to any member of his family, and then on to the faction of those associated with the family. To gain more status and influence (and money in a corrupt system - but it can work without money and corruption), the factions get one of their members to run for office. They get the backing of a political party, and in return the party can count on the influence (and up until now at leats, the money) of the faction to get that person elected.
Brian
Because this legislative election is still under the old, complicated multi-member district system, a straight-ticket vote isn’t as easy to achieve as people might think because of the disparity between the number of party candidates and the number of ballots a voter is allowed. So there’s still going to be a lot of “strategic voting”, which the DPP has so far been fairly good at.
On a related issues, in the past, most candidates’ campaign banners fairly clearly indicated the candidate’s party, whether by color or direct statement. This year, though, while the TSU’s are direct (candidate pictured with Lee Teng-hui) and the DPP’s are as green as ever, it seems to me that an unusually high number of KMT candidates are a lot more muted in their color schemes – just the palest of blues, as if fearing to be too closely linked to their own party. Has anyone else noticed this, or am I just imagining things?
I have noticed it too…
My take is that to be seen as a KMT candidate is a liability. Therefore they tone it down. The KMT is seen as sore losers by an increasing majority, and if you want those votes, you need to campaign on something else, like yourself.
The reason to that DPP/TSU use their logos a lot is that it’s seen as a plus by the individual candidates, I guess.
My local PFP candidates (I live in a Mainlander area) seem to have the affiliation written on their banners, but I did notice a lot of banners where it wasn’t immediatly apparent what party they were from.
Brian
Don’t tell me this is a form of “let the best man/woman win”?
Nah…must be trying to get rid of the stench of the KMT.
After the last LY Pan Blue fiasco the candidates quit putting party affiliation on their banners to “disguise” the identity of their benefactor. Is this still the case?
The Chinese parties will all be swept from power because they represent oppression and soon all of Taiwan will be run by a united one-party Taiwanese system!