Drop the bong Masao, I think you’ve had enough.
I think it’s pretty certain that the KMT are going to lose seats… but who will pick them up? Will it be the PFP? After all, they have in the past positioned themselves as “truer blue”… Or, will the loss of the middle ground for KMT lead to a major migration of the votes from blue to green? And… who will win most of those votes, the DPP or the TSU?
Also, the fact that LY elections are murkier and less clear cut than presidential elections with local factions (as mentioned by Bu Lai En) and gangsters having more of an influence, should have an impact on the election? and if it has an impact, to which side?
Another question is if there is a “middle ground” in Taiwan, a group of voters, who can vote on both camps, and are les passionate about the chasm between the 2 camps but tend to vote for the “more sensible” side.
Any takers?
I think the DPP is trying to win over the less passionate KMT supporters. Chen Shui-bian just rejected the idea that Taiwan’s status remains undetermined. Of course as president of the ROC he has no other choice, but campaign-wise his remarks look like an appeal to people who are not passionate KMT supporters but who grew up under KMT indoctrination and are suspicious of DPP motives. In a way, the DPP is trying to grab the KMT’s “pro-ROC” turf.
This will surely alienate part of the deep-green camp, but Chen doesn’t have to worry because they will all go to his current ally, the TSU.
On the blue side, a lot of the deep blues will vote PFP, but PFP’s support rate has also fallen sharply because of its role in the post-election protests. I guess some of the less fervent PFP supporters are with the KMT now.
The PFP looks set to lose more heavily than the KMT, especially in southern Taiwan.
The KMT still has quite a lot of moderate, good quality mid- and high-ranking cadres who identify themselves with Taiwan rather than China, and will radically change the party if they’re given the chance to do so once Lien can finally be ditched. Compared to the PFP, they hold much more appeal to middle-of-the-road voters whose thinking is increasingly Taiwan-centric but who want above all to preserve the status quo and who are somewhat afraid of what A-bian and the pan-greens might do if they have unfettered power.
The PFP are cast in stone and do not seem likely to ever change except in becoming even more offensively strident, extremist and pro-Beijing. How can they possibly have any chance of increasing their appeal to Taiwanese voters in the current political environment? On the contrary, the antics of people like Soong and Chiu Yi (I can’t remember if that’s how that repulsive toad-faced creep romanizes his name, and can’t be bothered to search for it) have endeared them to few but the most hard-core pan-blues and alienated many who might have voted for them in the past.
Therefore, I expect the PFP to be the biggest loser in the election, shedding a third or more of its seats, and the KMT to drop just a few of its seats, which will be picked up quite evenly by the DPP and TSU. That is certainly what I’ll be hoping for.
Absolutely, I’m sure there is a very sizable group of “middle ground” voters. It’s very easy to assume that everyone is either rabidly pro-Green or rabidly pro-Blue (given the behaviour of the politicians, the partisanship of the media, and protestors on the street) - but I don’t think that’s the case for ‘normal’ voters. You’ve only got to look at the number of people who’ve gone from voting Blue to Green in the presidential elections to see there are plenty of people who are moderates whose vote is up for grabs.
I’d be very surprised if there wasn’t a big swing of moderate voters away from the PFP/KMT after the antics of the last few months …
A very astute observation. President Chen went from some 39% of the total voters to 50.11% over 4 years, so a swing is inevitable, it seems.
Let’s look at the past and see if it’s any guide to the present.
In the 1995 LY elections, the pan blues (KMT and New Party) got 59.1% of the votes, the DPP got 33.2%, and independents got 7.7%
In the 1998 LY election, the pan blues got 53.5%, the DPP got 29.6%, and smaller parties with independents got the rest.
In 2001, the pan blues got 49.8%, the green camp got 41.2, and the independent candidates got the rest.
The blues have been losing support since 1996, and the debacle over the last couple of months have most likely cost them a large proportion of the middle ground votes.
Now, how do we discover how big the middle ground is?
OK, let’s start with defining DPP core support:
Let’s for simplicity’s sake assume that the core support of the DPP are roughly the percentage, who voted for Peng Mingmin in 1996.
That’s some 21% of the electorate, which are die hard DPP supporters.
Then, how do we get to the true blues?
Well, the mainlander (people and descendants of non Hoklo-Hakka-aboriginal descent, who arrived here in the late 40’s) vote is theirs, that’s some 15% of the population. Also, they have a proportion of the rest, let’s assume that it’s the same amount as what I call the mainlander vote. That gives another 15% for a total of 30%.
When we then deduct the die hard supporters from the total number of voters, you end up with a middle ground of some 50%. The DPP has already shown that they can capture more than half of the middle ground votes, and they are currently the only ones actually vying for them. Also, the blue tactics have alreadu scared a few of the middle ground voters away.
Let’s say for simplicity’s sake that the greens capture 5% more than what they got during the presindetial election. That should give them 55%, with the rest to be distributed among independents, KMT, and PFP.
Also, if they are able to work their strategic vote system a bit better, they should win at least as many seats, as the percentage above shows. In other words, I personally believe that they will take the legislature.
Also, my attempt of analysis above is very rough, and is a guide only. better attempts welcome.
Oh, do any of you have some roughly reliable poll results?
I wouldn’t count on the KMT losing just a few seats. There are quite a few factors not favorable to the KMT. 1. The party, at least Lien’s faction of the party, played a strong role in the protests. 2. The KMT’s campaign does not look as well organized as the DPP’s. 3. The DPP has incumbent advantage. 4. The recent gaffes of Lien and his cohorts do not help. They don’t seem to be making any intelligent effort to keep their less fervent voters in the fold. Instead they just seem to be fighting against their ally PFP for the deep blue votes. I’m sure individual candidates have their differences, but the party’s general image is not helping to prevent the loss of votes. That’s a contrast to the DPP’s highly organized campaign strategy aimed at “making the pie bigger.”
Plus Taiwan’s multi-member district system is highly unpredictable. A miscalculation or an unexpected turn of events could cost you more than one seat in a single district. Here again, the DPP has always been better at getting the most seats out of their votes with their vote allocation schemes. We can always expect a big surprise.
I know things are looking good thus far, but I’m still not expecting any huge landslides, no reason to look forward to such a thing. Only thing I need to know is that DPP/TSU will get over half of the seats, not if that’s an easy task to begin with, but I think they will do good. Maybe about 116 to 123 seats? I’m also expecting TSU to win 20 plus seats.
Although the whole election is seemingly very unfavorable towards the KMT/PFP right now, one thing the KMT still has going for them is that they nominated very conservatively. For example, in some places where they have the potential of winning 3 seats, they only nominate 2, and will most certainly win these two seats. PFP on the other hand, is a completely different story, since their nomination strategy is still based on their 2001 election records, and they most certainly do not hold the same popularity as before, the end results can only be bad nomination strategy by over-estimation. One place both KMT/PFP have a good potential of screwing up, and could cost them 1 or 2 seats, is Taipei City. Too many of their candidates wants to run in Taipei since that’s their largest stronghold, so they nominated as many as they could, but once you count the Independence in the picture, Taipei becomes one huge over-nominated fiasco for the Pan-Blues.
Another thing to watch out for is low turnouts, if turnouts are low it will certainly hurt the KMT/PFP more than it hurts the DPP/TSU. So that will be interesting to look out for too.
This is not a recent trend, it’s been so for several years at least. And it’s not limited to pan-blues either. A lot of candidates seem to be hiding their party affiliation.
Well actually, traditionally the KMT is much better at this, but the DPP has improved each time. See Shelly Rigger’s work for more detailed documentation.
I noticed there isn’t much specific information here on this election yet, so I thought I’d provide a link or two.
ETToday has a pretty good election page, and there are a number of polls they’ve done in most of the districts that show to some degree who can take the “safe seats”, or who has enough suport that they’ll almost certainly be elected. This page has one poll result, and if you look at the “related articles” list on the right there are a number of other polls.
A great many people have said they are “undecided” so far, even more than before the presidential election, which is not surprising.
Edited for typos.
Are these numbers estimates based on general estimates in news reports, or did you have some form of district by district analysis of who would win each of the seats? I tried to start a spreadsheet today to make such an analysis based on the poll data from ETToday, but I found it wasn’t going to be worth the effort-- too many seats were true question marks, and the “safe seats” seemed to have a fairly even blue-green split (though maybe slightly in favor of green).
According to the polls, except for a few cases where some extremely well known individual has 30% of the vote for himself, most of the time the support of the first place candidate is 10-17%, the second place guy has 5-10%, and everyone else is in the 2-5% range. That makes it tough to see what’s going to happen. And based on just a general blue/green breakdown, I didn’t think I’d find out more than what was being reported already-- a near 50%-50% split.
I am not basing my estimates on any polls or analysis, that’s too complicated for my mind to work out. What I was thinking was that Chen got 50% of the votes, and there were more people voted for the referendum than for Chen, so those are the swing voters who could easily switched sides. That’s why I don’t think it’s going to remain a 50%-50% split but perhaps 55%-45%.
Also, on top of the bad cooperations between the KMT and PFP, the Independents (including those who originally belong to the KMT/PFP but decided to run on their own due to disafactions with their party’s nomination strategy) are just furturing screwing up their plan. These candidates are only pulling the votes away from the Blue, and not doing any damage to the Green.
I just think that their whole nomination strategy and vote allocation schemes is off, especially the PFP, then got further complicated by the Independents candidates. For example, if you look at Taipei’s second district, there are suppose to be 10 seats but has a total of 30 candidates running. KMT/PFP nominated 3 each, if there were no Independts, they will easily win these 6 seats, but it’s a whole different story now and they can easily scewed each other up. (which is their plan to begin with anyway, independents wants to screw the KMT/PFP by stealing their votes, KMT wants to screw the PFP, and the PFP doing the same back. Each only cares about themselves and all wants to save their own asses)
This is a fine analysis, but as has been mentioned in this thread, due to local allegiences that have been especially strong for the KMT and PFP, legislative election results will not necessarily mirror the presidential election results. Nevertheless, we all know it’s going to be a very tight race.
I’m also interested in a couple of issues regaridng the next legislature. For example, as I recall there was a DPP member who said cutting Taiwan into 73 single-member districts was “suicide” for the DPP, as the DPP would have great difficulty winning a majority of those districts. Naturally, it depends on how they’re drawn. So I guess I’m wondering: how well can the DPP do, and can the districts be drawn “fairly?” What will constitute “fairly?”
Also, what do people think of extending the term of the next legislature so that the elections will start being on schedule with Presidential elections? This should reduce the problem now of having some major election almost ALL THE TIME in Taiwan. If there is to be an extention, should the 6th legislature extend its own term, or is this a bad idea? What about having the lame duck 5th legislature extend the 6th legislature’s term? Or what about waiting and extending the 7th legislature’s term when the 6th is running things?
Local allegiances have no loyalties, it’s just about money and resources. That’s why some call them the “watermelon faction”, they tilt towards the bigger side. That is why the Blue got so pissed and nervous when one of the DPP strategist mentioned the “cut throat till they die”, because they know the DPP is setting out to grap these local allegiances.
This didn’t happen in 2001 was because at that time many people were probably still thinking that the DPP win was a one time fluke, and was expecting them to loose in 2004. Now the DPP had won the re-election, the factions might have to consider the possibilities of realigning themselves with the party of administrative resources. Granted, the KMT still have lots more money and I don’t know what kinds of deals they cuts, but I still believe that the KMT local allegiances advantage is lot lessen now.
The Legislature Election Reform is another reason why it will be hard for the KMT/PFP to allocate their votes this time around. Right now there are 176 district seats, but it’s going to be cut to 73 for the next term. Meaning if the candidates do end up winning the top 3rd or 4th spot, it will be harder for them to get nominated again for the reasoning of lack of performance and popularity.
In 2001, there were some KMT candidates who had extremely high poll numbers on the top 1 or 2 spot, indicated an easy win, so they reallocated their votes to rescue the candidates who weren’t doing so well in the polls, but that ended up making the top poll candidate loose by a few hundred votes because they overestimated themselves. I doubt their prime candidates will be willing to share their votes so generously this time around, because if he end up loosing, that might just be the end of his political career. (3 years of political unemployment plus the risk of not being nominated again at 2008)
(If I am personally running as a candidate, I’d do everything to make sure that I stay at the top spot and screw everyone else)
This do or die competition does not affect the Pan-Green as much, since they still hold the government, and their support is growing, meaning they have more to share with each other while the Blue pie is getting smaller.
Depending on the draw, some say it’s ok and other says it’s stupid. I’m personally against it for the simple reason that each votes in different districts carries a different value. We had discussed it in another thread about this. It is also extremely disadvantageous to the smaller parties such as the TSU or PFP, and I don’t like that at all.
When you think of “Pan-Blue” legislators is your first thought of angry people? I can’t think of an instance in the past several years when the blues were not in the midst of being angry. I guess it is all relative since the DPP had been known for LY boxing matches or Frank Hsieh spray painting a numeral “ONE” on the desk of an aging representative from a district in China, indicating “The First To Go”… but really the blues seem the be the “Pan-Angry Parties” without a lot of attention to their constituents.
Greens should like this news.
edit: I just realized how outdated this was. Sorry about that.
taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/ … 2003209078
[quote] . . . “As of yet, the PFP and the KMT have still not merged. We are coordinating separate legislative efforts,” Chang said yesterday.
The KMT’s plans seem to contradict an agreement made earlier this month with the PFP to establish an election campaign coordination center to organize the election efforts of all pan-blue candidates. . . .
“The KMT has only the Ma camp' [political supporters of Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九)] and the Wang camp’ [supporters of Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平)] in mind, not the pan-blue camp,” Soong said.[/quote]
I may be totally wrong, or I may be able to say: “Toldja! I rule!”
- The election result is that DPP will get over 100 seats. This, plus the support they have from their TSU and independent allies, will constitute a great Pan Green victory.
(Note: To me, the above should be a no brainer to anyone who paid attention to Pan Blue’s idiotic and disgraceful behavior following the presidential election. But, the human brain is excellent at deluding itself, so somehow or other the diehard Pan Blue supporters will still find some reason to rally around Lien-Soong and express hatred against President Chen.)
-
Pan Blue will end up with less than 100 seats, a crushing blow by any measure. Regardless, Lien and Soong will express optimism that independent legislators will stand with the side of “truth” and help them defeat DPP’s “tyrannical rule.” Yeah whatever ya blasted morons.
-
At the first opportunity, Pan Green will push through legislation to get full accounting of KMT’s illegally acquired party assets, and Pan Blue will be powerless to stop them. Which is exactly as it should be.
-
Vigorous investigation ensues. KMT has no choice but reveal its books. The investigation will not be limited to KMT’s current assets. Sales of KMT assets in the recent past will be hunted down and reclaimed, causing much gnashing of teeth by Pan Blue and their profiteering cronies.
-
Lien and Soong squeal like stuck pigs. I on the other hand dance in the streets and pump my fist and make more fun of AC Dropout.
-
KMT suffers such grave loss of political power and prestige that it ends up with two choices: reform from within or become irrelevant. However, party elders remain stubbornly inflexible, resulting in massive exodus of party members who place the wellfare of Taiwan before the KMT.
-
KMT morphs to become much like PFP today - a hardcore Waishenren party. Ma becomes the only KMT politician with star power. In an effort to reclaim past glory, Lien and Soong have no choice but to step aside and let Ma be the next presidential nominee, setting the stage for a possible KMT comeback.
What you say makes sense, but you have to remember - this is TAIWAN… and anything can and most likely will - happen. I will make my predictions after the elections! 
Disclaimer: I don’t have a problem with Waisheng Ren who genuinely care about Taiwan. I have no wish to bash or stereotype all Waisheng Ren.
On the other hand, I am strongly opposed to elitist, arrogant Waisheng Ren who look down on Bensheng Ren.
I am too and that is why all WSR-KMT/PFP stooges will be voted out of power next week!