BLUES FAIL IN FIRST TEST OF "PAN BLUE" COOPERATION

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TAIPEI 000841

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/13/2032
TAGS: PGOV TW
SUBJECT: BLUES FAIL IN FIRST TEST OF "PAN BLUE" COOPERATION


Classified By: AIT Director Stephen M. Young, Reason 1.4 (b/d)


1. (C) Summary. The race for the Keelung mayoral
by-election on May 12, precipitated by the sudden death of
the mayor in February, has re-opened deep fissures between
local KMT and PFP political establishments. The two pan-Blue
parties have failed to agree on a joint candidate in this
Blue stronghold, where 67 percent of voters supported a KMT
or PFP candidate in the 2005 mayoral election. Although the
KMT-PFP split only marginally increases the electoral
prospects of the DPP challenger, it nevertheless suggests
that broader KMT-PFP cooperation ahead of the December 2007
Legislative Yuan (LY) elections could equally fall victim to
local pan-Blue factional and personality-driven politics.
End Summary.

A Death Intensifies Squabbles Within the Pan-Blue "Family"
-------------- --------------


2. (C) Keelung Mayor Hsu Tsai-li (KMT) died in February
2007, necessitating an unexpected by-election scheduled for
May 12 that has re-opened deep fissures between the local
Kuomintang (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) political
establishments. The two pan-Blue parties have failed to
agree on a joint candidate in this Blue stronghold, where 67
percent of voters supported a KMT or PFP candidate in the
2005 mayoral election. In early March, KMT Secretary-General
Wu Den-yeh and his PFP counterpart Chin Chin-sheng began
discussions to jointly nominate a candidate in order to avoid
repeating the three-way race between the KMT, PFP, and Taiwan
Solidarity Union (TSU) in 2005. The two candidates, Keeling
City Council Speaker Chang Tong-rong (KMT) and Legislator Liu
Wen-hsiung (PFP),agreed to use public opinion polls to
select the strongest pan-Blue candidate. When the poll
results favored Chang by an average five percent margin, the
KMT endorsed him as its mayoral candidate. Liu and other PFP
representatives then dismissed the polls as fixed, pointing
to a separate TVBS poll that showed Liu leading by almost
eight points. (Comment: Keelung KMT Chairman Lee Po-yuan
claimed that the TSU had actually funded the TVBS poll in an
effort to encourage Liu to stay in the race and create a
Pan-Blue split to boost the Democratic Progressive Party
(DPP) candidate Shih Shih-ming. End Comment.)


3. (C) KMT Vice Chairman Chan Chun-po told AIT in late March
that the KMT and PFP candidates are not evenly matched in
Keelung, predicting that KMT's Chang Tong-rong would still
come out on top despite the KMT-PFP split. Chan explained
that Liu had hurt his own electoral prospects by his
incessant criticism of the KMT local party establishment,
especially of former mayor Hsu Tsai-li, who was facing an
indictment on corruption charges at the time of his death.
Liu, who had a weak factional support base within Keelung to
begin with, has as a result alienated Hsu's supporters and
ensured that the Keelung administration and Hsu's political
networks will throw their support behind the KMT candidate.
Chang, who has spent his entire political career in Keelung,
has built up his own strong political network, attending to
the needs of his constituents, while Liu has spent most of
his time in Taipei becoming a nationally recognized but
locally less well-vested figure.


4. (C) With the strong advantages enjoyed by Chang, Keelung
KMT Chair Lee Po-yuan predicted to AIT that the KMT would win
the mayoral race by 10,000 votes, about five percent of
Keelung's 185,000 voters. Chang, he said, would win with
just under 39 percent, a virtual repeat of the 2005 race,
while the DPP could count on no more than its 33 percent base
and PFP's Liu could poll even lower. The only chance the DPP
has of winning is if the Blue vote evenly splits as it did in
1997, the last time Keelung elected a DPP mayor. In the
past, PFP politicians have done well in Keelung, but none has
won the mayor's position.

A Sign of What's To Come?
--------------


5. (C) The Blue split in Keelung so far appears to be a
local problem, but it begs the question of how prepared the
parties are to cooperate nationally. The two parties may
have good intentions but do not appear able to control local

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politicians. Keelung KMT Chairman Lee told AIT that the
mayoral race would have been Liu's for the taking, if Liu had
not left the KMT years ago. Lee explained that he could not,
in any event, simply "hand over" KMT voters to a PFP
candidate. The KMT candidate won the mayoral race last time
in Keelung, he noted, and KMT voters might well stay home or
even vote DPP if the KMT tried to force them to cross party
lines and vote PFP, he said. As large multi-member LY
districts become smaller, single-member districts this fall,
additional well-known PFP politicians such as Liu may run
into similar trouble trying to find specific geographical
constituencies where they can single-handedly command a
majority.

Comment
--------------


6. (C) The inability of the KMT and PFP to choose a joint
pan-Blue candidate for the mayoral by-election is making what
should be a landslide Blue victory a potentially close race
with the DPP. The failure to weed out competing pan-Blue
candidates through the use of public opinion polls in this
first test of pan-Blue cooperation suggests that the KMT-PFP
polling mechanism could have a limited utility in producing
joint pan-Blue candidates for the upcoming legislative
elections. The failure of the pan-Blue parties to realize
their pledge of nominating a common candidate in Keelung
raises questions about whether the pan-Blues can re-establish
the trust needed to cooperate in the December LY elections.
KMT-PFP cooperation, however, may come easier in regions
where the Blue-Green camps are more evenly matched and a
pan-Blue split almost certain to produce a DPP or TSU victory.
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