Sunday, January 12, 2020

Taiwanese elections.

Results of the Taiwan election are in!

President
57.1% - DPP - 8,170,231 - Tsai Ing-wen and Lai Ching-te (William)
38.6% - KMT - 5,522,119 - Han Kuo-yu and Chang San-cheng
4.3% - PFP - 608,590 - James Soong (Chu-yu) and Sandra Yu
163,631 invalid ballots cast
4,846,534 abstentions (voters who stayed home)

Geographically, the KMT won only 6 counties. They lost Hsinchu city, but won the two counties that surround it, by 47.45%-46.88% and 50.32%-45.02% respectively. Their larger victories came in the two east coast counties, and the two counties making up the islands part of the Republic of China that are not on the Island of Taiwan itself. Their largest victory, with 77% of the vote, comes from Kinmen Island, located just 10KM away from Xiamen, a major port city in mainland China. It should be noted that if "Red China" were to ever make moves towards Taiwan, annexing these two counties would likely be the first step. (It should be noted that taking these islands does not indicate Taiwan will be annexed shortly there after; there could be decades between the two events)


Legislature:
61 - DPP (Democratic Progressive Party - Progressive - Light Sovereigntist)
38 - KMT (Kuomintang [Nationalist Party] - Conservative - Light Reunification)
5 - TPP (Peoples First Party - Center Right - Light Reunification)
3 - NPP (New Power Party - Left Populist - Sovereigntist)
1 - TSP (Taiwan Statebuilding Party - Liberal - Separatist)
1 - NPSU (Non-Partisan Solidarity Union - Centrist - Pro-Aboriginal)
4 - Various Independents

Sovereigntist is used in this context to represent to way the DPP has operated. The party has not simply declared Taiwan independent, nor do they seem to wish to do so in such a radical and harsh manner. They, instead, want to slowly build Taiwan into an independent country, and, quite likely, if they ever were to declare independence, would only do so after consultation with the people (IE, a referendum)

Separatist is thus a party that seems far more radical on the issue; one that might actually declare outright independence if they had a majority - though, with only one MP representing this viewpoint, it remains to be seen where things will go should these members gain in popularity.

Light indicates that the party generally supports the status quo, and is looking to 'tap the dials' and move towards their ideal slowly.

Reunification does not mean submission to "Red China" (that'd be Unionism in this context) but rather to re-unify China as a single, free, multi-party, democratic, and capitalist country.


Geographically, there are some differences. The east coast here was won by DPP, while KMT did well in the interior, and won Hsinchu city, as well as parts of Taipei.

Note that the NPSU member was elected as an Independent, but sits with the NPSU.

Much of the seat change comes from the List and not the individual 'ridings'. Though there were some swaps - where the KMT would take a DPP seat in an area, but the DPP took a KMT seat nearby - most of the KMT gains / DPP losses come from the proportional list


In the end, DPP has been re-elected to a second term both in the Presidency and the Legislature, though with the message that the President is more popular than the Legislature.


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