PAN-GREEN SURPRISE DEFEAT: TECHNICAL FACTORS KEY?

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TAIPEI 003956

SIPDIS

STATE PASS AIT/W

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/13/2014
TAGS: PGOV TW
SUBJECT: PAN-GREEN SURPRISE DEFEAT: TECHNICAL FACTORS KEY?

REF: A. TAIPEI 03898


B. TAIPEI 03940

Classified By: AIT Acting Director David J. Keegan, Reason 1.4 (B/D)


1. (C) Summary: An overly aggressive nomination strategy
combined with a lower than expected voter turnout to deal the
Pan-Green camp a surprising defeat in the December 11
Legislative Yuan (LY) election. Although the Pan-Green
alliance of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the
Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) made some small gains over its
2001 LY performance, the Pan-Green fell 12 seats short of
winning a controlling majority in the LY and performed well
below its own expectations and most analysts' estimates
(Reftels). Throughout the election, national-level issues,
such as constitutional revision and name rectification,
dominated the media but remained secondary to the
electorate's focus on local-level personality and party
machine-driven politics. End Summary.

The Pan-Green's Achilles Heel: Aggressive Nominations
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2. (C) Riding high after its presidential election victory
earlier this year, the Pan-Green camp implemented an
aggressive nomination strategy in the hope of translating
earlier support for President Chen Shui-bian into a majority
of seats in the LY. The DPP increased its nominations from
83 in 2001 to 92 this year, many of the jumps coming in
traditional Pan-Blue strongholds in northern and central
Taiwan where the DPP thought it had cultivated enough votes
to pick up more seats. The DPP, moreover, appears to have
continued to support all its candidates in the final two
weeks without resorting to the tactic of "dropping stragglers
to protect the rest" (ch'i-pao) as it had done in previous
elections. The TSU's nomination of 30 candidates, although a
drop from 40 in 2001, proved too optimistic and damaged the
Pan-Green as a whole. TSU candidates soaked up enough Green
votes to deprive the DPP of an additional 6-7 seats. The TSU
candidates were largely unknowns, both locally and
nationally. As a result, few were strong enough to win. They
could only siphon off votes that might have won enough DPP
seats for Chen to reach his announced goal.


3. (C) The overly-aggressive nomination strategy and decision
not to drop stragglers greatly complicated Pan-Green efforts
to allocate votes (pei-piao) evenly among its candidates
within a given district. Taoyuan County, where the DPP had
sufficient votes to gain six seats but won only four, is
illustrative of Pan-Green's poor performance in areas of
potential gain. The DPP nominated seven candidates -- one
more than in 2001 -- but because the vote allocation to the
lower three candidates was spread so evenly (around 30,000
votes) a rival TSU candidate and a Pan-Blue People First
Party (PFP) member beat out all three by 1,400 and 3,400
votes, respectively.


4. (C) Other areas, such as Taipei County, experienced what
some observers are calling the "Shen Fa-hui" phenomenon. DPP
members who had been watching Shen trail badly in public
opinion polls took it upon themselves to "allocate" their
votes to Shen, who ended up the highest DPP vote-getter in
the district. According to several post-election polls,
although DPP supporters were more likely to allocate votes
than Pan-Blue members, many DPP supporters ignored party
guidelines on vote allocation and made their own decisions on
how to cast their votes.

Centrist Voters Stayed Home
--------------


4. (C) The low voter turnout, 59.16 percent compared to over
80 percent in the presidential election, also worked against
the Pan-Green, as many of the large block of centrist voters
who made President Chen's victory in March opted to sit out
this election. The DPP had projecting in its internal
polling a turnout of 62-64 percent. The missing 3-5 percent,
had they chosen to show, could have tilted the election in
the Pan-Green's favor. According to one poll, 25 percent of
the people who chose not to vote were Pan-Green supporters
versus 19 percent for Pan-Blue. Regardless of party
affiliation, however, the absence of centrist voters was felt
hardest by "moderates" in both camps. Hsu Chung-hsiung, a
"lite Blue" legislator, pointed out that extreme
pro-unification and pro-independence candidates came away
with high vote tallies while moderates like himself and
Bi-khim Hsiao had much lower vote totals than polls projected
because centrist voters, their main base of support, did not
vote in large numbers.

KMT Grassroots Machinery: Keeps on Tickin'
--------------


5. (C) In contrast to the Pan-Green, the Pan-Blue retention
of its majority defied analysts' predictions and suggests
that the Kuomintang (KMT) extensive grassroots operations may
not be as worn down as even KMT party insiders thought. KMT
Director for Overseas Affairs Ho Szu-yin told AIT the night
of the election that his party had conducted a focused effort
to identify and tap into a reserve of "contingency voters"
that they directed in the last two days of the campaign to
boost struggling candidates. The Pan-Blue conservative
approach in nominating its candidates, moreover, allowed the
Pan-Blue to concentrate its resources and, in the end,
support for most ex-KMT "maverick" candidates shifted back to
the party candidates. As a result, the KMT was able to pick
up 11 seats and preserve the Pan-Blue majority despite the
PFP's loss of 12 seats.

Comment: A Referendum on Taiwan Independence?
-------------- -


6. (C) In the post-election climate some Taiwan and foreign
media, as well as local politicians, have touted the election
results as a clear referendum against a radical Taiwan
independence agenda. However, it is difficult to tell
whether election fatigue or a reaction to constitutional
reform and "love Taiwan" rhetoric, which worked exceedingly
well for President Chen earlier in the year, were responsible
for the final outcome. Pan-Blue leaders and moderates within
the DPP are pointing to the "radical" pro-independence
rhetoric in a bid to move Chen and the DPP back to a more
centrist position (Septel). Despite the rhetorical fury
unleashed by President Chen and former President Lee Tung-hui
in the final weeks of the election, most grassroots leaders
that AIT consulted continue to say that national issues
played only a small role in LY election politics. Although
the DPP defeat may weaken its ability to push the sometimes
inflammatory and divisive agenda Chen proclaimed during the
campaign, the reason for the defeat may lie more in the DPP's
tactical and mechanical mistakes.
PAAL