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 TAIPEI 00000841 002 OF 002 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. YOUNG