POST-ELECTION LANDSCAPE: DPP DISAPPOINTED BUT NOT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 TAIPEI 000019 SIPDIS STATE PASS AIT/W E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/04/2015 TAGS: PREL PGOV TW SUBJECT: POST-ELECTION LANDSCAPE: DPP DISAPPOINTED BUT NOT DEFEATED REF: A. TAIPEI 03340 ¶B. TAIPEI 04103 ¶C. TAIPEI 04076 ¶D. TAIPEI 02662 ¶E. TAIPEI 04007 Classified By: AIT Director Douglas Paal, Reason: 1.4 (B/D) POST-ELECTION LANDSCAPE: DPP Down But Not Out ¶1. (C) Summary: In the December legislative elections in Taiwan, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) gained both seats and vote share and remains the largest party in the Legislative Yuan (LY). Nonetheless, almost all media accounts described it as a "defeat" for the DPP, and almost all sides of the political spectrum here have done the same. If there was a DPP "defeat," it can be ascribed to a combination of exaggerated expectations and poor tactics. Conversely, Kuomintang (KMT) success in maintaining a slender Pan-Blue majority was largely due to its tactical and organizational success. Chen Shui-bian's attempt to energize voters with his controversial rhetoric failed to win votes, but it did make him the issue and consequently made what might have been a tactical setback into a national issue. If nothing else, this election surprised all observers because it broke a string of three successive DPP electoral successes, two presidential and one legislative. While the DPP may be perceived to have lost the election, it retains the initiative over its opponents. Chen continues to dominate both Taiwan,s domestic and cross-Strait Agenda, and that may mean continued domestic gridlock and cross-Strait tension. End Summary. Proclaiming Defeat -------------- ¶2. (C) Both local and International press coverage of Taiwan's LY election immediately proclaimed that the election was a defeat for the DPP and a rejection of President Chen Shui-bian. Both the Green and the Blue camps publicly delivered the same message. On the evening of the election, President Chen somberly announced that he was resigning as DPP Chairman to show that he accepted responsibility for the DPP falling short of his forecasts. The party Secretary General Chang Jun-hsiung and Deputy Secretary General Lee Ying-yuan promptly submitted their resignations as well. KMT Chairman Lien Chan reveled in his first election victory, and LY President Wang Jin-pyng immediately began talking about what the Pan-Blue agenda for the next three years would look like. At a post-election conference in Taipei, however, Dr. Shelley Rigger, a US scholar of Taiwanese politics, cautioned that depictions of the LY election outcome as "a defeat for the DPP and a popular rejection of President Chen's moves toward independence" were "too simple." Dr. Lo Chih-cheng, Executive Director of the Institute for National Policy Research agreed with Dr. Rigger, saying, "The results of the election should not be overstated. This was not necessarily a 'defeat' for the Pan-Green camp." DPP Made Gains, But "Set the Bar Too High" -------------- ¶3. (C) Numerically, at least, it is difficult to characterize the DPP as a loser in this election. The DPP once again took more seats and a greater share of the vote than any other party, expanding its position in the LY by two seats. Its share of the vote was the highest in any legislative election, continuing its steady growth trend over the last three elections, from 29.6 percent in 1998 to 33.4 percent in 2001 to 35.7 percent in 2004. The perception that the DPP "lost" the election was not a product of vote count, Academica Sinica election researcher Hsu Yung-ming told AIT, but rather a failure of expectations: "They set the bar too high," he explained. Likewise, the Pan-Blue's perceived success in this election, despite losing seats and vote share compared to 2001, was a matter of beating everybody's excessively pessimistic predictions. Strategy and Tactics Matter -------------- ¶4. (C) The DPP's high expectations affected more than just the way the outcome was perceived, it likely affected the outcome itself. DPP over-optimism caused it to nominate too many candidates which distributed the DPP vote too thinly in some districts (see Ref A for a more detailed explanation of the importance of vote distribution in Taiwan's single non-transferable vote multi-member district electoral system). In Taoyuan County, for example, the DPP took five of twelve seats in 2001, but won only four of (now) thirteen seats this year. The reason was not a fall in support -- DPP vote share this year (34.2 percent) was virtually unchanged from 2001 (33.4 percent) -- but rather that the DPP nominated six in 2001 and seven this year, spreading its votes too thinly. The three DPP candidates who lost received about 30,000 votes each, just shy of the 32,000 vote threshold of victory. Had the DPP stayed with six nominees, it would have almost certainly kept its five seats and very likely taken a sixth. Similar over-nomination probably cost the DPP one seat each in Taichung and Changhua Counties and in Taipei City. ¶5. (C) Conversely, the KMT's unexpected success on December 11 can be partially attributed to its conservative nomination strategy stemming from its memory of its losses in 2001. Whereas in 2001 the KMT heavily overnominated, enabling only 53 of its 97 district candidates to win, this year the KMT nominated only 74 candidates, of whom 61 won seats in the LY. LY Politics: Almost Everything is Local... -------------- ¶6. (C) The contrasting nomination strategies led to contrasting slates of candidates. Most KMT candidates were veteran politicians, often incumbents with large support networks of their own. The DPP, in contrast, ran slates packed with newcomers, in an effort to cultivate new leaders and replace the many veteran legislators who now encumber senior government positions. Local DPP campaign headquarters that supported these newcomers, moreover, often consisted of little more than a handful of volunteers in small, rudimentary, rented offices. In this election, Hsu argued, the KMT was able to utilize its local organizational advantage to mobilize supporters behind its candidates in a way the DPP was unable to match. The widely rumored impact of DPP targeted distribution of government largesse does not seem to have swung the balance as some had expected. ... National Issues Misfire -------------- ¶7. (C) Chen Shui-bian attempted to run a national campaign for a "Pan-Green majority" that he hoped would mobilize the 50.11 percent of voters who had supported him in the March 2004 Presidential election and discourage pro-independence DPP voters from defecting to the more fundamentalist Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU). At campaign rallies around the island, he emphasized the issues of "Taiwan identity" and "national sovereignty" that had galvanized his supporters in March. This Chen-led campaign strategy may have contributed to the poor TSU showing, but it may also have scared off middle-of-the-road voters, whom some DPP strategists insist are crucial to the DPP,s long-term goal of becoming the majority party. Some in the Pan-Blue camp have seized on Chen,s failure in order to characterize the election as a popular rejection of Chen and his policies, and have called for a greater Pan-Blue role in forming the government (Ref B). Moderates in the New Tide faction of the DPP have also criticized Chen's risky campaign rhetoric in an attempt to steer the party toward their positions and to increase the faction's leverage in formation of the new government (Ref C). They argue Chen's move to dominate the electin resulted in a depressed turnout that hurt the DPP without hurting the TSU. SIPDIS Centrists Sat Out the Election, But Didn't Swing Blue -------------- -------------- ¶8. (C) Yu Ching-hsin, Deputy Director of National Chengchi University's Election Study Center, cautioned against drawing hasty conclusions, stressing that "this election had nothing to do with these (national) issues." Despite the prominence given to Chen's rhetoric by the media, he explained, few LY candidates even mentioned issues of sovereignty or independence in their own campaigns, and most voters based their decision on local, not national, factors. He dismissed speculation by some commentators that Chen's rhetoric had driven large numbers of nervous centrists to vote for Pan-Blue candidates. Pan-Blue vote share was actually at an all-time low in this election, he noted, and all of the KMT's gains were at the expense of the People First Party (PFP), its Pan-Blue ally, rather than the DPP. Pointing to the record low turnout (59%, compared with 81% in the March 2004 presidential election and 66% in the 2001 LY election),Yu suggested that alienated centrist voters instead decided to sit out this election altogether. "On both sides, the only voters who came out were core supporters," he said. Hsu Yung-ming offered a similar assessment, explaining that the DPP's failure to achieve its oft-repeated goal of attaining a Pan-Green legislative majority was due, not to any change in voter sentiment, but rather to its inability to effectively mobilize its own supporters. He suggested that part of the reason for DPP voter apathy was, ironically, Chen's domination of the campaign agenda and media spotlight. "(KMT Chairman) Lien Chan never appeared on TV," he explained, "so there was nothing to get them (DPP voters) riled up." Reversing Expectations -------------- ¶9. (C) If the DPP numbers were up, why is everyone convinced that the DPP lost? President Chen may be largely to blame. Beginning immediately after March 20, he made this legislative election into the second half of the presidential election, calling on his supporters to give him a working majority in the LY so that he could push his program through the legislature. He reminded voters that the KMT had held both executive and legislative power for fifty years and called on them to give him three years of that power to show what the DPP could do. He then made himself the primary DPP campaigner, dominating the media with his calls for Taiwanization and his predictions that the Pan-Green would in fact secure effective control of the LY. KMT supporters during the LY campaign had persuaded themselves that they were about to lose. A variety of KMT candidates told AIT that they were de-emphasizing their party ties in their campaigns and discouraging Lien Chan from visiting their districts. Senior KMT politicians, like Taichung Mayor Jason Hu and Taoyuan Magistrate Eric Chu were openly discussing the long-term benefit to the KMT of its expected defeat. As a result, many observers and politicians were surprised by the Pan-Blue,s success in holding its ground in the LY. After triumphing in two presidential elections and one LY election, the DPP and the Pan-Green had stumbled. Don,t Underestimate the Counter Puncher -------------- ¶10. (C) While the DPP seems momentarily in disarray, and the KMT is still celebrating its victory, President Chen remains in control of Taiwan,s domestic and cross-Strait agenda. While his resignation from the DPP Chairmanship and the anticipated resignation of Premier Yu Shyi-kun may both appear to acknowledge defeat, he appears to be turning these resignations into an opportunity to orchestrate competition for the DPP presidential nod in 2008, blessing the election of Presidential Office Secretary General Su Tseng-chang as new party chairman and perhaps Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh (Chang-ting) as the new premier. When the PRC announced its plans to enact an anti-secession law, Chen quickly seized this as an opportunity to remind Taiwan that this was another example of mainland animosity toward Taiwan and its self-respect. Chen may have expressed humility and urged cross-party reconciliation and cooperation in his New Year's Day speech, but he also excoriated Mainland China for threatening Taiwan and regional stability. ¶11. (C) In the waning days of the current LY session, the KMT had hoped to seize the initiative, but it finds itself once more fighting within the terms of the DPP agenda. The ten major economic projects, the special budget for defense acquisitions, even proposals for Taiwan legislation on cross-Strait relations all play to DPP themes. If these trends continue, President Chen and the DPP will emerge from the appearance of political defeat to continue to dominate Taiwan,s political landscape. If that proves true, President Chen may well decide to continue his accustomed confrontational and divisive approach, and the result may be continuing internal political deadlock and increased cross-Strait tension. PAAL