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Lopsided KMT election victory changes Taiwan's political map

ROC Central News Agency

2008-01-13 19:51:29
By Han Nai-kuo CNA Staff Writer

    Taipei, Jan. 13 (CNA) The Jan. 12 legislative elections have changed Taiwan's political map so drastically that the next legislature will be mainly a bipartisan arena, with the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) holding atwo-thirds majority in a downsized but more powerful legislature.

    The KMT has secured 81 seats in the 113-member legislature, while the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has won only 27 seats. The remaining five seats are held by the KMT's "pan-blue alliance" allies.

    Political analysts have attributed the DPP's humiliating defeat to the fact that the DPP has squandered its two tenures as the ruling party and has lost the people's trust.

    Many of the analysts believe the DPP was defeated by itself rather than by the KMT. They have mixed feelings about the KMT success and are eager to see the party translate its hard-earned victory into an overall victory for Taiwan's democratic development. They have sounded the warning that the lopsided victory must not be allowed to become the beginning of another "single party authoritarian rule."

    The KMT has come up with assurances from its chairman, Wu Po-hsiung, that the party will "not abuse its majority" in the legislature, but will turn it into a "stabilizing force" for Taiwanese society.

    KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou, who will be pitted against his DPP opponent Frank Hsieh in the March 22 election, pledged that the KMT will try to "make up for the lost eight years" and "create a century-long heyday" for the nation. He also said the KMT will "face the future in a humble manner" by tolerating differences and respecting minority views.

    Meanwhile, the DPP, stunned by a defeat far worse than its members had expected, has begun serious soul searching in the hope of working out remedial measures to regain voter trust in time for the presidential election.

    Outgoing DPP Legislator Cheng Yun-peng pointed out bluntly that what he claimed was the main factor behind the DPP defeat -- a first family dogged by corruption charges. "The reason for our failure is so obvious and yet few DPP members are willing to touch the issue," Cheng said, adding added that if the DPP continues to rally behind President Chen Shui-bian and protect the first family, the voters will take it to mean that the party still does not know what went wrong.

    Cheng expressed concern that the DPP's election defeat might be seen as voter disapproval of its cause of Taiwan independence and its Taiwan-centric stance.

    Hsieh, who took over the helm of the DPP after Chen resigned as party chairman, is now the real master of his own election campaign, but it remains to be seen whether he is prepared to emerge from the shadow of the president and distance himself from the first family.

    With the DPP holding less than one-quarter of the seats in the new legislature, Hsieh apparently faces an uphill battle in the presidential election.

    The former premier will have a hard time persuading voters why a DPP-sponsored referendum seeking entry into the United Nations under the name Taiwan must be tied to the presidential election, after two referendums held alongside the Jan. 12 legislative elections were defeated because only 25 percent of the electorate took part in the voting.

    Even if Hsieh is able to win the presidential election, the future will not hold much for his party, because he will have to either make concessions to the KMT-dominated legislature or plunge the nation into a more serious gridlock than it suffered under Chen.

ENDITEM/J