Jan 12
15

Taiwan Election Analysis

Ma Ying-jeou & his wife Chou Mei-ching celebration his election triumph

As most if not all of you have heard by now, yesterday Ma Ying-jeou was re-elected President of the Republic of China (Taiwan) with 51.6 percent of the vote. Tsai Ing-wen had a total of 45.6% while third party candidate James Soong Chu-yu ended up with a mere 2.7%.

So what happened? How did Ma squeak this one out? I had picked Tsai to barely edge Ma but an unexpected factor came into play that speaks well of the Taiwanese electorate.

1) Soong was projected at various stages of the race to pull in between 8-11% of the vote. If he had hit 10% or more, Tsai most likely would have won. Whenever a person supports a 3rd party candidate that has no chance of winning, they are really voting for the candidate they would least like to see win. It’s an emotional rather than a rational decision and in this election, the pan-Blue vote went with their rational side and voted Ma. Soong’s political career is over; he has alienated the winning party who doesn’t need or even now want his support.

2) There’s an old saying in politics that people hate to change so that is why an incumbent always has an edge. The challenger has to give the undecided a positive reason to vote for them, a vision for the future that captures the imagination. Unlike Ma, Tsai is not a charismatic person and her main issue was the disparity between rich and poor, the haves and the have nots. This issue was not enough to push the undecided vote her way. She needed to separate herself further from Ma’s campaign stands and she was either unable or unwilling to do so.

3) The economy wasn’t bad enough to sway the vote. Though Taiwan has suffered from lowered exports, it wasn’t really Ma’s fault and he was able to convey this to the general public who, in the end, accepted his explanation. The other economic issues in the election weren’t bad enough of weren’t used adroitly enough by the Tsai campaign to have much traction with the voters.

The end result was that Taiwan had a peaceful, orderly, uncontroversial election that showed it is possible for Chinese culture to have a vibrant democracy. China might be happy and the USA might be happy with the results but that doesn’t matter to me. What matters to me is that the Taiwanese people are happy with the state of their democracy and the maturing of their political system. The people have spoken!

Tags: Culture, Events, Taiwan

This entry was posted on January 15, 2012 at 7:58 PM. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted in Politics Taiwan by Steve 16 Comments

Rhan says:

January 15, 2012 at 9:34 PM

Hi Steve, good analysis, and according to most Chinese language media, Tsai fail to grab the light blue and light green votes, reason being that 1) her vague position pertaining to independence and 2) last minute announcement by some business tycoon to support Ma. 3) the mess up by Ah Bian truly hurt the fence-sitter.

Wukailong says:

January 15, 2012 at 10:25 PM

I also read in a number of HK and Taiwan reports that Tsai’s opinion on the “Taiwan consensus” (which on its own was a good election strategy and something DPP could continue to build on) was indeed vague. I’m not sure it did play that big a role, though, and obviously the Ah Bian effect has veered off now, otherwise she wouldn’t have got almost half of the votes.

Allen says:

January 19, 2012 at 10:53 AM
Hope all is well, Steve…

You wrote:

What matters to me is that the Taiwanese people are happy with the state of their democracy and the maturing of their political system. The people have spoken!

Well … that might sound good, but under the hood (as all things), it’s much messier.

As you noted, part of the reason for KMT’s victory is that their supporters did not split the vote (as they did in 2000). The reason for splitting are complex – depending on dynamics that may ultimately not depend upon the people.

I have a joke / adage for you (you may have heard it from your wife; it is a joke version of a classic adage).

1. What happens when 1 monk tills the water? The monk tills the water faithfully and regularly everyday.

2. What happens when 2 monks till the water? The two monks find a pole and jointly tilling the water everyday.

3. What happens when 3 monks till the water? No water gets tilled. They argue with each other constantly over whose turn it is to till the water.

Has the monks “spoken” when they don’t till water?

The moral of the story, sane group can make bad group decisions if the group dynamics is bad.

A competitive electoral process – involving multiple parties – can be the same. The decision can depend less on the “people” than dynamics – including forces that split vote, campaign contribution, news events (such as whether a bullet grazes a sitting president), vagaries of the market, etc…

Outside the political process, when people who fundamentally don’t agree try to make a collective decision, we understand that the result is often a terrible decision – not just a decision that no one likes, but a bad decision, period.

See, e.g., http://consideringmeetings.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/two-
weakest-approaches-to-effective-meeting-decisions/

To simply say the result of all elections are an expression of the will of the people is an oversimplification in my opinion.

I’ll leave it at that. This is not meant to be a critique of the democratic forces in Taiwan or in general at all. Just food for thought.
- S.K. Cheung says:
  
  January 19, 2012 at 5:25 PM
  I think the results of THIS election do reflect the will of the Taiwanese people. THe choice in the election, in its most fundamental form, is extremely basic. Did the voter want Ma, Tsai, or Soong to lead the country? Based on that basic desire, the voters spoke clearly and loudly. Now, of course, the decision among each voter individually in determining who they wanted to lead the country is likely far more complex. The reason(s) for one voter to pick Ma might well be very different than those of another. They may even have chosen Ma not because they approve of him, but simply because they were more disapproving of Tsai. In the end, the election does not provide a forum for evaluating the reasons for the voters’ decisions (nor is it meant to). It also doesn’t provide any sort of guarantee that voters will necessarily be happy with the results…the forum for that is actually the next election. But Taiwanese people can take pride in the fact that they went through a process that was on the up-and-up, and which was not mired by a lot of shenanigans.
  
  I agree that not all elections necessarily reflect the will of the people. The most obvious exceptions would be ones where there are irregularities in the voting process, either in the form of voter/tabulation fraud, or impairment of voters’ ability to cast their vote in a safe and unfettered fashion.

miaka9383 says:

January 16, 2012 at 7:49 AM

I am a little biased. However, I have heard from my light blue friend on why he wouldn’t vote for Tsai.
He pretty much said:
1. The economic issues have been debated since Ah-Bian’s term, has wages improved since? He thinks on some level all of the elected presidents should have done better. He even voted for Ah-Bian the first time.
2. He does not like Tsai criticizing the 18% early retirement payment for government workers and yet have gotten it on her pay check. Also Yu Chang Affair definitely rubs him the wrong way and her saying “I am one of the common people” or “I have never been to a star school” but if you look at her record she is from priviledged family and yes she did not go to the # 1 school but she did go to just as highly ranked school since Middle School.
To him honesty and character is very important. And the issues above reflects on her chacter.
In my opinion, Tsai was not able to convey any of her platform correctly and attacks Ma and stands on the platform that Ma is worthless and an useless leader. But is he really as useless as a lot of people think he is?

Yes I agree with Steve that people do not like change, and vote for the incumbent, but I believe that Ma didn’t get vote off because of some of his accomplishments.
BTW in response to your other post Steve.. yes the visa issue has been initiated in Ah-Bian’s term, however according to my light blue friend, he said that 60 countries signed during Ma’s term. What does that say about Ma vs Ah-Bian?

S.K. Cheung says:

January 16, 2012 at 9:41 PM

To Steve,
your last paragraph is well said, and says it all.

RollingWave says:

January 19, 2012 at 1:04 AM

Steve:

Soong actually did what he went out to do, he got his PFP party over he 5% party vote hump and improved from 1 seat to 3 in this election, which actually kepted his political influence alive. though still barely, that’s why if you look at his speech after the election he hardly looked crushed.

Most polls had Ma leading at roughly the range he won at before it closed anyway, the irony is that the DPP’s accused pro-china medias actually ended up being far more accurate in their polling than the DPP and their associated once, one of the main reason is actually that the DPP assumed all those folks who say they havn’t decided are going to vote Green, which was more typicaly in the earlier half of the decade, but that trend was already begining to change in the last few year but the DPP apparently didn’t realize the changing of the trend.

The whole Yu Chang thing probably ended up hurting Ma more than Tsai, it’s a fuzzy subject at best and the KMT with all their even more dubious party assets criticizing anyone else on such things are likly to draw more irk than symphathy, espeically when it’s not something obviously incriminating .

The real difference is still Tsai’s dening of the so called 92 consesus and tried to sell the Taiwan Consesus , you know it scared people when almost all previous silent busniessmen came out in drove to support Ma, while most o them leaning KMT was never a huge question, they’ve almost never openly took sides in Candidates. most folks take Morris Zhang’s “i’ll suppot whoever wins” talk. but this time it’s pretty crazy how many of them came out to support Ma.

And Tsai probably made her final fatal mistake by trying to play the “evil corperation vs the people” type of rhetoric when faced with so many busniessmen comming out against her cross-strait agenda, Taiwan’s certainly not completely without inequiality problem but most folks still hold positive view of entrapeuers, and most of Taiwan’s are self made folks in manufacturing, they certainly didn’t get rich from their daddy or from gambling with other folk’s money.

Steve says:

January 19, 2012 at 11:11 AM

Hi RollingWave, welcome to the blog! Great comment and good points all.

Your initial point about the 5% threshold brings to mind something I was reading yesterday, that some in the DPP would like to bring back the old, multi-winner district style of voting. That’s ironic since the DPP pushed hard for single district winner-take-all voting, which I personally think is a much better system, getting rid of most of the gangsters and media gadflies. If it were up to me I’d have no at-large legislators but it’s not my choice. I don’t think anything is going to change but it’s interesting to see such a knee jerk reaction so soon after the election.

You’re certainly correct about the PFP getting two more seats but I think it’s the last gasp of a dying man. When you’re a one man show and your man can’t even pull 3%, your days are numbered. I really thought he’d do better than that and as I wrote previously, bravo to the voters for not wasting their ballots.

Completely agree about the polling, which was all over the place so really worth very little in terms of knowing where the candidates’ chances stood except that it’d be close. Taiwan elections have the two groups of hardcore supporters and that amorphous middle crowd who can move from light blue to light green and vice versa, depending on the times. Tsai never closed the sale with that group so they stuck with the incumbent.

Do you really think the consensus issue was the deciding factor rather than economic conditions? I never got that sense from our Taiwanese family and friends but you’re there and I’m not so I’m giving your conclusions a lot more validity than mine. Next time I’m in Taiwan, I’ll have to bring up that subject more often to get a better idea of the “why” of it. I’ll grill my wife when she returns next week on what she noticed.

When I worked there, I felt it wasn’t necessarily the businessmen who mattered but the technology professionals who were not only the swing vote but also have the numbers to really affect elections. I remember they went for Soong in ’00, Chen in ’04 and Ma in ’08. It seems pretty obvious they went for Ma once again in ’12. I wonder if it came down to trust? In the end, could it be that they just couldn’t place their trust in Tsai since she was an unknown to some extent and these are difficult economic times?

Agree with your last paragraph, nothing at all to add. Populist attacks usually start out well but then people get wise and feel they’re being manipulated.

January 20, 2012 at 1:56 AM

Hi Steve:

Your right that the PFP’s days are numbered, but Soong essentially made the most of his limited options.

As for the voting system, yes that is the talk of the town lately, and obviously most folks laugh that the DPP want to change the rules they made themself after they realize it actually sucks for them I think there’s probably some room for adjustment though, but not outright throwback to the old system, maybe if they increase the percentage of party representation (it’s only like 25% right now, could be more like 40 or even 50%). and also lower the bar on getting a seat (5% is actually a really high bar for small parties).

For economic condition, yes if the economic condition was even worse Ma would have lost, but it was mostly a neutural factor, it’s hard to say that Taiwan’s economy is GOOD right now either, meanwhile most of Chen’s second term was actually during the big world financial bubble and the election came befor ethe big crash really happened, that didn’t exactly help the DPP did it? Most folks don’t think the current economic condition is good but they agree that the world condition is mostly to blame and Taiwan’s at least relatively better compare to most of the west.

For the Consesus part, the reality is that Ma proved he can make deals with the PRC over his 4 years, no one can deny that at all and everyone sees the changes (for example, foreign visit to Taiwan grew by more than 2 million during Ma’s 4 year , it grew 1 million during Chen’s . Tsai was not able to really get around this, her Taiwan consesus had no set timeline or substance, and she didn’t apparently seem to consider whether or not the PRC would talk with her with her “consesus” was part of the issue at all, that obviously didn’t play. We woudlnt’ mind a “different” approach to the PRC sure, but we would certainly want to make sure that approach would actually work.

Taiwan’s voting trend is hard to totally summerize , age and occupation and backgrounds all matter, also those employed in science parks are actually not a huge number in the population, though that area does lean blue very decsively. the DPP didn’t gain nearly as many votes in the south this time around as they had hoped, I think part of that might have to do with their ambigious stand in regards to Chen Sui Bien’s case that cost them some vote and part of that is also because some are starting to feel the changes tourist and opening trade brings. then again at least relative to 08 most places swung back considerablly .

It’s going to take longer to really judge, but many folks here are wondering if there is actually some starting of shift in the voting block, aka that Tsai actually did win over a lot of the swing voter this time but the base is becomming increasingly tilted against them.

Busniessmen were a factor this time because they’ve almost never openly stated their preferences before, for example Lee Teng Hui and Nobel prize winner Lee Yuan Zhe supporting Tsai didn’t really make much of a difference, since they’ve been supporting DPP for a long time now and those would would be swayed by them already have, but the busniess tycoons like Terry Guo and HTC’s Wang Xui Hong never said anything before, so they probably mattered more.

mike says:

January 20, 2012 at 6:06 AM

“How did Ma squeak this one out?”

Because the DPP are a disgrace. That’s how.

“Taiwan’s certainly not completely without inequiality problem…”

The “inequality problem” is not one of income, but one of law (e.g. if you’re a poor farmer, your land can be legally stolen from you) and State favouritism. The DPP could not capitalize on this because almost all of their intellectual leadership comes from the Left and their complaints about property rights violations were thus always hollow.

My contempt for them is boundless; they deserved to lose.

January 22, 2012 at 7:29 PM

Hi RW,

Personally, I think they’d be crazy to go back towards the old system and should get rid of all party representation seats which are politicians not beholden to the voters but beholden to their party leaders so not looking out for their constituents’ interests. But it’s their country so their choice. I have a feeling it’ll stay the way it is. I don’t like having small parties with limited seats and little support. Too often they can have power far beyond their numbers inside coalition governments, such as what you see in Israel with small Orthodox religious parties or in Japan with the New Komeito Party. Just ask your Japanese friends how they’d feel if their daughter dated someone from Sōka Gakkai.

Economically, the KMT did what all incumbent parties do in slow economic times, they prime the pump before the election. In the end, the majority didn’t buy that a Tsai Presidency would mean more new jobs than a Ma Presidency.

I disagree with you about dealing with China. China decided that they would not give Chen any ‘victories’ vis a vis China so that was their decision rather than the DPP’s. And in the end it didn’t matter, Tsai isn’t Chen any more than Obama isn’t Clinton. The biggest difference in China’s Taiwan policy happened when Hu succeeded Jiang and made the decision to end the “fear close” tactics and be more accommodating. It was a good decision on Hu’s part. China’s policy in the immediate future will be set by Xi and his policy will determine how significant the relationship remains. Because of Taiwan’s limited diplomatic position, they are not in a position to do much about China policy.

When I talk about the science park voting block, I’m including far more than the high tech labor force. I’m also including all their suppliers, of which I was one, and their labor force. That’s a pretty significant chunk of people and more importantly, they tend to be more independent in their choices than the deep blue and deep green folks. I didn’t find them quite as blue as you do, though the majority leaned that way. I agree that it’ll take longer to judge but as to demographics, there are definite trends and that would make for a good new post.

I also agree that Lee’s endorsement didn’t make much difference. Everyone knew he would go that direction. I have no idea how much influence Guo and Wang’s endorsement meant but I personally think that endorsements in all elections mean far less than the pundits like to give them credit for. I think they just make for a good media article that people will read and then ignore.

We’re all speculating at this point and speculation is always fun. It’s good to hear another viewpoint.

January 22, 2012 at 7:42 PM

Mike:

Sorry to disappoint you but the DPP isn’t a disgrace and the KMT isn’t a disgrace. 45% of Taiwanese voted for Tsai; do you really think they’re that stupid? 52% voted for Ma and they’re not stupid either. Where intellectual leadership comes from is irrelevant, what that leadership believes and propagates matters. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t give you the the right to ad hominum criticize, it’s just a reflection of you and your own biases. if you’re really all hung up about Taiwan’s legal and court system, you should be complaining about the KMT because it’s their constitutional system and their people that control it. Railing about the DPP over something they don’t control says more about you than about the DPP or Taiwan’s political system.

Why don’t you give these people some credit for having an uneventful, calm, classy election with no real controversies? My wife was very impressed with how smoothly things ran at her polling place. Didn’t you notice it? Or didn’t you bother to look?

January 23, 2012 at 3:30 AM

hi Steve:

on the matter of party seats: the matter is that while they don’t represent their constitutioncy, that sometimes can be a good thing as well, since they would not need to worry around ear marking every bill to death to satisfy their local base. which the US congress these days sees a lot of problem with, even when certain bills supposedly fit their party line they’ll get watered down by so many crazy earmarks that most don’t do what they’re suppose to do, that’s generally what the party seat was set up for, to balance out the localization of politics so that some legislator can still vote base on the bigger picture.

The KMT did well this time by nominating a lot of NGO and Academic folks on their list, and before that they nominated a Olympian winner etc . so that helps, those list need to be pre-disclosed so folks can judge for themself which one is lined with pork barrel politician and which one actually have folks you want to see in the legislature.

As for what happened during Chen’s years between Taiwan and China, we know that whatever did happen happened behind closed doors, so we really don’t know what really went down (only the more obvious result that they could barely get anything down.), with the KMT now at least most of the talks are on the news and public.

February 11, 2012 at 9:35 AM

My response here. You didn’t have to ban me just because you don’t like what I had to say – I’m not a troll.

February 11, 2012 at 10:39 AM

@Mike: You were never banned. The current comment of yours got stuck in the spam filter and I changed that. However, in your response you say that

“I’ll put this on the record here only because my more acerbic response was disallowed there”

Neither Steve nor I have seen the comment you refer to. Did you write it and it didn’t turn up? I haven’t seen anything like it in the spam filter so if you have a copy of it somewhere, feel free to repost it.

February 12, 2012 at 2:58 AM

Oh? I assumed it was disallowed: yes I wrote a response at the time and no, it didn’t show up. I didn’t save it, and can’t remember exactly what I wrote now, so I’ll leave the matter there.

I am not a troll (the Anonymous in the comments here is a troll), but it seems to me that the concept is often conveniently expanded to encompass anyone who disagrees with the blog owner and/or is not prepared to offer the requisite level of saccharine deference.

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Taiwan Election Analysis

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