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