COUNTRY	Taiwan, Republic of China
ELECTION TYPE	Presidential
DATE	March 20, 2004

• The office of the president of the Republic of China.

• Chief of State: President CHEN Shui-bian
• Head of Government: Premier (President of the Executive Yuan) YU Shyi-kun and Vice Premier (Vice President of the Executive Yuan) Lin Hsin-i
• Assembly: Taiwan has a unicameral Legislative Yuan which consists of 225 seats.

Note: Taiwan also has a National Assembly which, as a non-standing body, is only called into session by the Legislative Yuan to amend the constitution, impreach the president, or change national borders.

• The president is elected by a plurality of the vote for a four-year term.
• In the Legislative Yuan, 176 members are elected by popular vote (168 from Taiwanese counties, cities and special municipalities and 8 from the aboriginal population). The remaining 49 members (8 ROC citizens who reside abroad and 41 in-country nationals) are selected by the political parties according to the proportion of nationwide votes received by each. All members serve three-year terms.

• Presidential Candidate: CHEN Shui-bian
  Party: Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)
  Valid Votes Received: 6,471,970
  Percent of Valid Votes Received: 50.11%
  
  
• Presidential Candidate: LIEN Chan
  Party: Kuomintang (KMT, aka Nationalist Party)
  Valid Votes Received: 6,442,452
  Percent of Valid Votes Received: 49.89%

On March 23, President CHEN Shui-bian submitted a request to the Legislative Yuan to change electoral law and permit a recount when the margin of victory is under 1%. If approved, the new law would take effective retroactively and would allow a recount to begin as early as March 25.

• The last presidential election was held on March 18, 2000 with CHEN Shui-bian securing the presidency with 39.3% of the votes, while the independent James SOONG won 36.84% of the votes, LIEN Chan from the KMT with 23.1% of the votes, independent candidate HSU Hsin-liang secured 0.63% and the New Party’s candidate Li Ao won 0.13% of the national votes.

• Population: 22,605,000 (December 2003 estimate)
• Number of registered voters: 16,507,179

• Issues that surrounded the elections include the economic status of Taiwan, the need for political reform and the country’s current relations with the People’s Republic of China.

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: IFES ELECTIONGUIDE ONLINE