Taiwan polls spotlight weighty matters

Supporters of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party wave candidates' flags

By Willy Wo-Lap Lam
Senior China Analyst

(CNN) -- War versus peace. Economics versus politics. Native Taiwanese versus mainlanders.

These are some of the weighty matters that will be decided at the Taiwan polls on December 1, the first election since Chen Shui-bian became president in March 2001.

Four hundred and seventy-six candidates will vie for 176 seats in the Legislative Yuan. Another 49 seats will be distributed to the major parties according to their share of the total votes.

There will also be mayoral elections in five cities -- and polls for the chief executives of 18 counties.

However, partly because there won't be elections for the mayors of the international cities of Taipei and Kaohsiung, the attention of the global media is focused on the hotly contested legislative polls.

President Chen Shiu Bian's pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) only controls 66 of the 225 legislative seats, and so the DPP has to gain more to make Chen's government less of a lame-duck administration.

Allies

Chen is expected to receive some help from the DPP's loose ally, the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU).

The new party is formed by former president Lee Teng-hui, who remains a popular politician despite being tarred by Beijing as the "godfather" of Taiwan independence.

Meanwhile, the Kuomintang (KMT) or Nationalists, which had been Taiwan's ruling party until last year, are battling to keep as many of its 113 seats as possible.

However, it is almost certain that some of the KMT's seats will be picked up by the People's First Party (PFP), which consists mostly of renegade KMT members, including its leader, the charismatic James Soong.

If the KMT does well, there is a possibility that the KMT and PFP may form a united front in the new legislature to do battle with the Chen administration.

Mainland relations

Relations with the mainland -- a matter of war or peace for Taiwan's 23 million residents -- have always been an important electoral issue.

This time, cross-Taiwan Strait ties have assumed added significance given that Beijing has refused to talk to the Chen administration.

Political analysts in Taipei said if the DPP could not win more than 75 legislative seats, it is possible that Beijing would continue snubbing Chen -- and instead concentrate on wooing the KMT and the PFP in the hope that a KMT or PFP candidate may win in the presidential polls in 2004.

In the electoral campaign, the leaders of the KMT and PFP, former vice-president Lien Chan and Soong, have cited Chen's "failed" mainland policy as one reason for political instability and the island's worst recession in recent memory.

Indeed, economic concerns have for the first time become an important topic in Taiwan elections, and the opposition parties are hoping that rising unemployment and other hardships may persuade voters to desert the DPP.

Origins

The analysts said tension across the Strait might worsen if the DPP -- and particularly the TSU -- were to perform better than expected.

This might show that in spite of the economic downturn, Taiwan voters have still chosen to link their fate with parties and politicians spurned by the mainland.

As in the past, ethnic or provincial origin -- whether a voter is a native Taiwanese or a "mainlander" -- is also an important concern.

Most of the supporters of the DPP and TSU are native Taiwanese while most PFP affiliates are mainlanders or "second-generation Taiwanese" whose parents came to Taiwan in the late 1940s.

However, should the DPP fail to retain its traditional share of at least 30 per cent of the popular vote, this may be a sign that mainly because of economic woes, a sizeable chunk of native-Taiwanese voters have cast their ballots irrespective of the "ethnic" issue.