2005-6 City Council results

If you want to know about the 2010 city council elections, you have to know something about what came before.  In this post, I will publish some summary statistics for the 2006 (Taipei and Kaohsiung City Councils) and 2005 (all others) elections.  I’ll save the comments and analysis for other posts.

The only difference in the electoral districts are in the aboriginal districts.  Taipei City has a new district for mountain aborigines, and Tainan has new districts for both plains and mountain aborigines.  I have left these lines blank to indicate that there was no election for them in 2005.  The plains aborigines districts in Taichung and Kaohsiung have been combined.  In 2005, both Taichung City and Taichung County had a plains aborigines seat in the respective council.  This year, there will only be one plains aborigines seat for the entire direct municipality.  I have combined the two districts into a single line in this table two reflect the new arrangement.  The same applies to Kaohsiung.

Votes

	Taipei	valid	KMT	DPP	New	PFP	TSU	IND
1	Shilin	267099	82748	85445	19598	8038	28698	42572
2	Neihu	177793	100245	47461		17710	4072	8305
3	Songshan	212336	94084	70513	17022	21515	4778	4424
4	Datong	168209	75943	50954		8377	20379	12556
5	Wanhua	172631	57885	66228	16572	8038	3858	20050
6	Da’an	274789	144575	71073	21560	25174	3412	8995
7	PA	3684	2702					982
8	MA
	total	1276541	558182	391674	74752	88852	65197	97884
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.
	Xinbei	valid	KMT	DPP	New	PFP	TSU	IND
1	Danshui	90317	40186	18644				31487
2	Xinzhuang	268124	110291	52867			8400	96566
3	Sanchong	269918	100288	56660		11847	13711	87412
4	Banqiao	265244	82088	60507	5570	12700	19253	85126
5	Zhonghe	205053	84520	42010	13900	30593		34030
6	Yonghe	113796	57989	31876		16779		7152
7	Tucheng	255860	85562	74492		14518	14904	66384
8	Xindian	160274	59118	25309	8341	47009		20497
9	Ruifang	32866						32866
10	Xizhi	102130	50567	15526		6478		29559
11	PA	8799	3629	1792				3378
12	MA	3803	1612	1027				1164
	total	1776184	675850	380710	27811	139924	56268	495621
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	Taichung	valid	KMT	DPP	New	PFP	TSU	IND
1	Dajia	64485	22965	10784				30736
2	Qingshui	103452	47633	12472			5916	37431
3	Dadu	93829	50878	14855				28096
4	Fengyuan	97878	40386	20510		7025	9172	20785
5	Tanzi	104379	53646	30779		4329	2501	13124
6	Xitun	79509	44691	21821		5526	4217	3254
7	Nantun	57902	31407	9162			5477	11856
8	Beitun	101950	59533	25950	3312	6115	3233	3807
9	North	63366	34692	16961		3549	6018	2146
10	CW	59942	25931	21390		1475	4227	6919
11	SE	79963	37948	28948		3273		9794
12	Taiping	71936	34434	19351		3592	1840	12719
13	Dali	110016	43354	26101		7092	2677	30792
14	Dongshi	53577	29542	9406		7507		7122
15	PA	2698	1097			1462		139
16	MA	3735						3735
	total	1148617	558137	268490	3312	50945	45278	222455
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	Tainan	valid	KMT	DPP	New	PFP	TSU	IND
1	Baihe	38007	23161	14846
2	Xinying	64218	25097	14218				24903
3	Xuejia	33558	7974	4170				21414
4	Madou	60696	16643	18351				25702
5	Jiali	52928	15804	26084				11040
6	Shanhua	35130	7112	10963				17055
7	Xinhua	33819	9059	6557				18203
8	Yujing	24041	9211	7298				7532
9	Yongkang	101938	34741	20081		2539	2246	42331
10	Annan	73331	12364	31695				29272
11	North	55650	24324	20546		3500		7280
12	C-W	35660	13075	14871			3285	4429
13	Anping	21672	9078	7039				5555
14	East	77962	24151	25106		5310		23395
15	South	59630	17959	16648		6280		18743
16	Rende	86596	21982	21366				43248
17	PA
18	MA
	total	854836	271735	259839	0	17629	5531	300102
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	Kaohsiung	valid	KMT	DPP	New	PFP	TSU	IND
1	Meinong	70444	26941	30004				13499
2	Luzhu	80847	43030	30539				7278
3	Gangshan	122816	64406	31293		8264	6332	12521
4	Zuoying	168127	79430	38692		15515	9326	25164
5	Dashu	85187	34457	37267				13463
6	Gushan	94362	32284	29121		3620	3488	25849
7	Sanmin	175582	68655	55639		8573	11442	31273
8	Lingya	144782	42504	41027		20231	20014	21006
9	Fengshan	141667	46156	42557		5051	4083	43820
10	Xiaogang	172733	48406	65602		3286	6209	49230
11	Daliao	87180	40165	26113				20902
12	PA	4302	1506	1336	233	572		655
13	MA: Namaxia	1878	1878
14	MA: Taoyuan	2898	2558					340
15	MA: Maolin	1700				1700
	total	1354505	532376	429190	233	66812	60894	265000

Vote share.

	Taipei	K%	D%	N%	P%	T%	I%
1	Shilin	31.0	32.0	7.3	3.0	10.7	15.9
2	Neihu	56.4	26.7		10.0	2.3	4.7
3	Songshan	44.3	33.2	8.0	10.1	2.3	2.1
4	Datong	45.1	30.3		5.0	12.1	7.5
5	Wanhua	33.5	38.4	9.6	4.7	2.2	11.6
6	Da’an	52.6	25.9	7.8	9.2	1.2	3.3
7	PA	73.3					26.7
8	MA
	total	43.7	30.7	5.9	7.0	5.1	7.7
.
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	Xinbei	K%	D%	N%	P%	T%	I%
1	Danshui	44.5	20.6				34.9
2	Xinzhuang	41.1	19.7			3.1	36.0
3	Sanchong	37.2	21.0		4.4	5.1	32.4
4	Banqiao	30.9	22.8	2.1	4.8	7.3	32.1
5	Zhonghe	41.2	20.5	6.8	14.9		16.6
6	Yonghe	51.0	28.0		14.7		6.3
7	Tucheng	33.4	29.1		5.7	5.8	25.9
8	Xindian	36.9	15.8	5.2	29.3		12.8
9	Ruifang						100.0
10	Xizhi	49.5	15.2		6.3		28.9
11	PA	41.2	20.4				38.4
12	MA	42.4	27.0				30.6
	total	38.1	21.4	1.6	7.9	3.2	27.9
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	Taichung	K%	D%	N%	P%	T%	I%
1	Dajia	35.6	16.7				47.7
2	Qingshui	46.0	12.1			5.7	36.2
3	Dadu	54.2	15.8				29.9
4	Fengyuan	41.3	21.0		7.2	9.4	21.2
5	Tanzi	51.4	29.5		4.1	2.4	12.6
6	Xitun	56.2	27.4		7.0	5.3	4.1
7	Nantun	54.2	15.8			9.5	20.5
8	Beitun	58.4	25.5	3.2	6.0	3.2	3.7
9	North	54.7	26.8		5.6	9.5	3.4
10	CW	43.3	35.7		2.5	7.1	11.5
11	SE	47.5	36.2		4.1		12.2
12	Taiping	47.9	26.9		5.0	2.6	17.7
13	Dali	39.4	23.7		6.4	2.4	28.0
14	Dongshi	55.1	17.6		14.0		13.3
15	PA	40.7			54.2		5.2
16	MA						100.0
	total	48.6	23.4	0.3	4.4	3.9	19.4
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	Tainan	K%	D%	N%	P%	T%	I%
1	Baihe	60.9	39.1
2	Xinying	39.1	22.1				38.8
3	Xuejia	23.8	12.4				63.8
4	Madou	27.4	30.2				42.3
5	Jiali	29.9	49.3				20.9
6	Shanhua	20.2	31.2				48.5
7	Xinhua	26.8	19.4				53.8
8	Yujing	38.3	30.4				31.3
9	Yongkang	34.1	19.7		2.5	2.2	41.5
10	Annan	16.9	43.2				39.9
11	North	43.7	36.9		6.3		13.1
12	C-W	36.7	41.7			9.2	12.4
13	Anping	41.9	32.5				25.6
14	East	31.0	32.2		6.8		30.0
15	South	30.1	27.9		10.5		31.4
16	Rende	25.4	24.7				49.9
17	PA
18	MA
	total	31.8	30.4		2.1	0.6	35.1
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	Kaohsiung	K%	D%	N%	P%	T%	I%
1	Meinong	38.2	42.6				19.2
2	Luzhu	53.2	37.8				9.0
3	Gangshan	52.4	25.5		6.7	5.2	10.2
4	Zuoying	47.2	23.0		9.2	5.5	14.967
5	Dashu	40.4	43.7				15.8
6	Gushan	34.2	30.9		3.8	3.7	27.393
7	Sanmin	39.1	31.7		4.9	6.5	17.811
8	Lingya	29.4	28.3		14.0	13.8	14.509
9	Fengshan	32.6	30.0		3.6	2.9	30.9
10	Xiaogang	28.0	38.0		1.9	3.6	28.501
11	Daliao	46.1	30.0				24.0
12	PA	35.0	31.1	5.4	13.3		15.2
13	MA: Namaxia	100.0
14	MA: Taoyuan	88.3					11.7
15	MA: Maolin				100.0
	total	39.3	31.7	0.0	4.9	4.5	19.6

seats

	Taipei	seats	KMT	DPP	New	PFP	TSU	IND
1	Shilin	10	3	3	1		1	2
2	Neihu	7	4	2		1
3	Songshan	9	5	3	1
4	Datong	7	3	3			1
5	Wanhua	7	2	4	1
6	Da’an	11	6	3	1	1
7	PA	1	1
8	MA
	total	52	24	18	4	2	2	2
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	Xinbei	seats	KMT	DPP	New	PFP	TSU	IND
1	Danshui	3	1	1				1
2	Xinzhuang	10	4	3				3
3	Sanchong	10	5	2			1	2
4	Banqiao	9	4	2			1	2
5	Zhonghe	7	3	2		1		1
6	Yonghe	4	2	1		1
7	Tucheng	9	3	3		1	1	1
8	Xindian	5	1	1		2		1
9	Ruifang	1						1
10	Xizhi	4	3	1
11	PA	2	1					1
12	MA	1	1
	total	65	28	16		5	3	13
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	Taichung	seats	KMT	DPP	New	PFP	TSU	IND
1	Dajia	5	3					2
2	Qingshui	7	3					4
3	Dadu	7	5	1				1
4	Fengyuan	8	3	3		1	1
5	Tanzi	9	5	3				1
6	Xitun	8	4	3		1
7	Nantun	6	4	1				1
8	Beitun	10	6	3		1
9	North	7	3	3			1
10	CW	6	2	3				1
11	SE	8	4	4
12	Taiping	6	3	2				1
13	Dali	9	5	2		1		1
14	Dongshi	4	2	1				1
15	PA	2	1			1
16	MA	1						1
	total	103	53	29	0	5	2	14
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	Tainan	seats	KMT	DPP	New	PFP	TSU	IND
1	Baihe	4	3	1
2	Xinying	6	3					3
3	Xuejia	3	1					2
4	Madou	5	1	2				2
5	Jiali	5	2	2				1
6	Shanhua	3		1				2
7	Xinhua	3	1					2
8	Yujing	2	1					1
9	Yongkang	11	5	2				4
10	Annan	9	2	4				3
11	North	7	3	2		1		1
12	C-W	5	2	2				1
13	Anping	3	2	1
14	East	10	4	3		1		2
15	South	7	2	2		1		2
16	Rende	8	2	2				4
17	PA
18	MA
	total	91	34	24		3		30
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	Kaohsiung	seats	KMT	DPP	New	PFP	TSU	IND
1	Meinong	6	2	3				1
2	Luzhu	6	4	2
3	Gangshan	10	7	2		1
4	Zuoying	10	5	2		1	1	1
5	Dashu	7	3	3				1
6	Gushan	5	2	2				1
7	Sanmin	10	4	4		1		1
8	Lingya	8	2	3		2		1
9	Fengshan	14	5	4				5
10	Xiaogang	10	3	4				3
11	Daliao	7	4	2				1
12	PA	2	1			1
13	MA: Namaxia	1	1
14	MA: Taoyuan	1	1
15	MA: Maolin	1				1
	total	98	44	31	0	7	1	15

PFP loses legislator

PFP legislator Lin Zhenger 林正二 was convicted of vote-buying last week, and he will lose his seat in the legislature.  Lin is the only PFP legislator, so the PFP caucus will be reduced to zero.

The criminal case against Lin was dismissed.  However, the civil case ended in a conviction.

No by-election will be held.  Lin represents Plains Aborigines and was elected in a three-seat district.  By-elections are only necessary if at least half the seats in a district are vacant and at least half the term remains.  Neither of these conditions applies, so the seat will simply remain vacant until the next general election in a year and a half.

Here’s the fun part: we’ve been here before.  In 1994, Lin was elected to the Provincial Assembly.  He was convicted of vote-buying and stripped of his seat in mid-1995.  However, according to the law at the time, he was not stripped of political rights.  Lin’s response was to accept the court decision and run in the by-election.  Of course, he won the by-election and served out his term.  In 1998, when the Provincial Assembly was abolished, he moved to the legislature and has been elected four times.  (The law has since been changed, and Lin will not be eligible to run for the legislature in the next election.)

Thoughts on Tainan and Kaohsiung mayoral races

I’m starting to wonder if I should reassess the way I’ve been thinking about the two southern mayoral races, and especially the one in Tainan.  I’ve viewed these basically as easy DPP victories.  This is due as much to the weakness of the two KMT candidates as anything.  There enough KMT-leaning voters in both districts that, under the right conditions, either could be a close race.  However, neither of these KMT candidates looks even remotely capable of assembling a 50% coalition.  I’m quite impressed with Chen Ju 陳菊 in Kaohsiung and less so with Lai Qingde 賴清德 in Tainan, but Lai has a bigger margin of error to work with due to the larger percentage of DPP-leaning voters.  So I’ve been thinking of both races as roughly 60-40 wins for the DPP.

Both DPP nominees won hotly contested primaries, and it has become increasingly apparent that the losers in those primaries are not going to accept defeat.  Most people expect both Yang Qiuxing 楊秋興 and Xu Tiancai 許添財 to announce that they will run as independents in the general election.  However, this has not inspired me to fundamentally change my opinion of the races.  I think both will get some votes, but neither will be strong enough to change the outcome.

Why will they get some votes?  Both have been in office for nine years and amassed a fair amount of political favors.  Both have reasonably good records, more so for Yang and less so for Xu.  Xu will enjoy strong support from former president Chen, and as a non-DPP nominee, will be the co-flagship candidate (Chen’s son being the other) of Chen’s alliance, to the extent that he decides to put one together.  Yang might join this alliance in order to gain some sort of national political backing, but his background is in the New Tide faction, so the fit is not quite as natural.  Regardless, neither one should prove to be an absolute turkey.

Nevertheless, I don’t think Yang and Xu will change the outcome of the races.  Many people who supported them in the primaries will not do so again in the general election.  There are a couple of reasons for this.  Many of their supporters are really DPP supporters.  Within the DPP, they preferred Yang or Xu to Chen or Lai, but their first loyalty is to the party.  More importantly, the third candidates almost always get crushed in single seat elections.  Even if a voter still prefers Yang or Xu, he or she might have to face the possibility that they are mired in third place with very little chance to win.  Pre-election polls will make the horse-race widely known, so Yang and Xu have to establish themselves as credible candidates early on if they are to have any chance at all.  Since I haven’t seen any evidence that Yang and Xu are anything but distant third-place candidates, I think the most likely outcome is that their support will be reduced to only their die-hard supporters.  I’m guessing that will be somewhere in the 5-10% range.  In a 60-40 race, a 5-10% candidate will not affect the outcome.

However, let’s assume for a minute that I am fundamentally wrong about the strength of Yang or Xu.  Perhaps one of them could get 20-25% of the votes.  Even that might not be enough to change the outcome.  One of the basic mistakes that people make in thinking about splinter candidates is that they draw their support exclusively from one candidate or party.  This is incorrect.  Xu will draw his support disproportionately, but not exclusively, from Lai.  Some of his votes will come from people who would not have voted in a two-way race, and some of his votes will come from people who would have voted for the KMT candidate in a two-way race.  Remember that there are all kinds of personal networks that overlap party affiliations.  For example, Yang has done lots of work promoting agricultural products, so many farmers who might otherwise lean to the KMT, might support Yang (but never Chen Ju) in appreciation for Yang’s good agricultural policies.  There are probably some voters (not too many) who would vote for Xu based on his surname, who in the absence of a candidate named Xu would vote for the KMT.  Perhaps none of these groups has lots of members, but there are some.  And remember, shedding the DPP party label frees a candidate to court voters who would never consider supporting the DPP.

So let’s imagine, for the sake of argument, that 80% of Xu’s or Yang’s votes would have gone to the DPP in a two-way race, while the other 20% would have gone to the KMT.  (80% is arbitrary, but 4 out of 5 seems reasonable to me.)  What would it take to change a 60-40 race?  If Xu gets 10%, this would become a 52-38-10 race.  At 20%, it is 44-36-20, still a comfortable 8% DPP victory.  At 30%, it is 36-34-30, still barely in the DPP’s favor.  In other words, if you start from a 60-40 cushion, the splinter candidate might have to win the election outright to change the result.  Admittedly, we are making lots of assumptions here, but the general point is that simply having a splinter candidate in the election does not mean that the DPP nominees should panic.  The KMT nominees are weak enough that the DPP should be able to withstand the pressure.

I started this post by saying that I might be reconsidering this vision of the Tainan race.  The reason has to do with a small news story a few days ago.  Lai’s campaign team announced that legislator Li Junyi 李俊毅 would be working for their campaign in some capacity.  Li immediately announced to the press that this was incorrect and that he had not agreed to work for the campaign.  He also complained that it had taken Lai two months to come and see him to ask for his support following the primary.

It is not unusual for losers such as Xu to be upset about losing and be unable to accept that outcome.  However, their campaigns rarely attract broad support.  Li’s reaction is something else entirely.  Li also contested the nomination, but he lost decisively.  This is the kind of politician who you would expect to fall into line and support the party nominee, even if he doesn’t really like the guy.  Li will probably be running for re-election as a legislator, and he will want to be seen as a good party soldier.  Even if he doesn’t actually do any work for the Lai campaign, it is strange that he wouldn’t accept the title, wave a flag at big events, and smile politely.

In short, Li’s actions make me wonder about Lai’s broader coalition.  If he can’t persuade people like Li to at least pretend they are all on the same team, does this forebode serious problems for Lai’s team?  Is there something about his personality that repulses outsiders and prevents them from becoming insiders?  I am probably making too much of this, but it is possible that I am vastly underestimating Xu and ex-president Chen, overestimating the value of a DPP nomination in Tainan, and completely in the dark about problems Lai is experiencing in trying to transform his primary campaign effort into a general election campaign team.

DPP Central Standing Committee election

I’ve been silent for nearly a month.  So sue me.  Nothing much has happened anyway, except for the ECFA signing, KMT city council nominations, a major judicial scandal involving a former elected official, and a few other things of equally minor importance.  Who wants to write about stuff like that?

Instead of stuff like that (that might have a real impact on the country’s future), I’m going to address something much more mundane today, the DPP’s recent Central Standing Committee (CSC) elections.

The DPP power structure is elected indirectly.  First, the party congress elects the 30 members of the Central Executive Committee (CEC), and then the CEC elects the 10 members of the CSC.  (Yes, this is exactly how the KMT does it too.  The DPP copied the KMT’s Leninist architecture.)  The voting is done according to the SNTV method.  There are also some ex-officio members of the CSC, including the party chair, the three leaders of the legislative caucus, any mayors of direct municipalities, and one county executive (chosen by the various DPP county executives).

The DPP formally abolished its factions a few years ago, and they persist in thinking that we are stupid enough to believe this fiction.  I will not cooperate by calling the factions “the former New Tide faction” and so on.  There are currently six factions to consider: the former New Tide faction, the Hsieh faction (centered around Frank Hsieh 謝長廷), the Su faction (centered around Su Zhenchang 蘇貞昌), the You faction (centered around You Xikun 游錫堃), the Grandparents faction (公媽派) (of older DPP leaders, such as Annette Lu 呂秀蓮 and Cai Tongrong 蔡同榮), and the Chen faction (centered around the former president).  Party chair Cai Yingwen 蔡英文 does not have her own faction; instead she is supported by other factions.  However, she is starting to develop her ties and you can see how a proto-Cai faction could emerge.

It is fashionable to say that these factions have no policy content, but I don’t think that is quite true.  Nowadays, you find the Taiwan fundamentalists mostly in the Grandparents and Chen factions.

So here is the result of the CSC election.  I recreated the voting from news stories, so I’m not 100% sure it is correct, but it seems to make sense.

Win?	name	name	votes	faction
	謝長廷	Frank Hsieh	4	Hsieh
	蔡同榮	Cai Tongrong	3	Grandparents
	段宜康	Duan Yikang	3	New Tide
	徐佳青	Xu Jiaqing	1	New Tide
	顏曉菁	Yan Xiaojing	1	New Tide
	林佳龍	Lin Jialong	3	You
	余政憲	Yu Zhengxian	3	Chen/Chen Ju
	蔡憲浩	Cai Xianhao	3	Su
	何志偉	He Zhiwei	3	(Su)
	陳明文	Chen Mingwen	3	?
No	張宏陸	Zhang Honglu	3	Su
Total			30

There are a couple of widely reported stories.  First, most people were surprised that Annette Lu was not elected.  Apparently she made a serious miscalculation.  The DPP rules guarantee that the ten CSC spots will have at least two women.  Lu first communicated with the other factions to determine if other women were running.  According to the China Times, she persuaded the other factions to withdraw all but one of their female candidates so that she would be guaranteed victory.  However, she then tried to exploit this concession.  Since only one other woman was angling for a position, Lu decided to throw her support to Cai Tongrong.  With one unfilled seat for women, the party would hold a second round of voting and Lu calculated that her overall prestige in the party would enable her to win that seat.  That way, the Grandparents would win two seats.  (If she had a vote or two to give away, Cai Tongrong certainly needed it.  If he had only gotten one or two votes, he would have lost.)  However, the New Tide faction caught wind of her stratagem, and quickly decided to add a female candidate and give each of its two women one vote.  Thus, Lu had zero votes, and two New Tide female candidates each had one, and no second round was needed.  (Oh, the joys of good organization!)  Of course, Lu has since denied that she was interested at all in running for the CSC.  Well, that’s what I would expect her to say instead of admitting to such an embarrassing blunder, but we have to at least store away (however skeptically) the possibility that she is telling the truth.

The other interesting story concerned the one loser.  Hsieh (with four votes) and the two women were clear winners.  The other eight candidates for seven seats all tied with three votes.  According to DPP rules,[i] ties are broken by drawing lots.  Chen Mingwen drew the short straw and should have been the loser.  Chen, as you will recall, is the former Chiayi County executive and is now a member of the legislature.  He isn’t really associated with a faction, though the various newspapers said that he is close to Cai Yingwen, and he was elected to the CEC with the support of the New Tide faction and Chen Ju.  Most sources copped out and simply listed him as belonging to the Chiayi faction, which doesn’t really exist as far as I know.  At this point, Su Zhenchang stepped in and instructed his footsoldier, Zhang Honglu, not to draw a lot, thereby yielding the last seat to Chen.

From one point of view, Su has gone mad.  The CSC has a two year term, so this is the body that will be making the important decisions about how the 2012 presidential candidate is nominated.  We all expect that to be a contest between Su and Cai.  Su just traded out a sure vote on the CSC for one who might side with Cai.  On the other hand, Su might be trying to expand his coalition.  Zhang Honglu is a minor Taipei County politician.  He doesn’t bring any independent support.  Chen Mingwen, with all of his support in Chiayi, brings something to the table that is worth wooing.  Now Chen owes him a favor, though we don’t know just how far Chen will feel obligated to go in repaying that favor or whether this will shift Chen into Su’s orbit.

As far as the balance of power goes, the most important trend is the decline of the Chen and Grandparents factions.  In particular, many news sources reported that the Chen faction has been shut out completely.  You’ll notice that I have classified Yu Zhengxian as being part of the Chen faction, but his victory was supposedly due more to the efforts of Chen Ju than to the former president.  (Chen Ju needs Yu for his family’s network in Kaohsiung County; she is clearly not part of the former president’s faction.)  Since these two factions are considered to be the redoubt of the Taiwan fundamentalists and the former president, their decline is significant.  It seems clear that the DPP is continuing its transition out of the Chen Era.

On the other hand, it would be optimistic to say, as the Taipei Times did, that this election marked the consolidation of Cai’s leadership.  Both Taipei Times and TVBS asserted that she could claim the support of six elected members of the CSC: the three New Tide members, Lin Jialong, Chen Mingwen, and Yu Zhengxian.  The China Times suggested that Cai lobbied to get Lin Jialong, Yu Zhengxian (via Chen Ju), and Chen Mingwen elected (supposedly, she asked Su to intervene on Chen’s behalf).  Going through the roll call this way makes it painfully obvious how tenuous Cai’s support is.  Cai’s current strength lies in a balance of power.  None of the factions are strong enough to control the party, and all of them are worried about other factions gaining too much strength.  Since she does not have her own army, Cai is not as much of a threat.  She is a comfortable umbrella for everyone.  And recall that everyone is supposed to be on the same side here – the New Tide faction might want more influence, but it doesn’t want the Su faction to be totally shut out of power to the extent that it might leave, and thus diminish, the party.

So who runs the party?  Well, we’re not sure.  It might be Cai, as Taipei Times and TVBS suggest.  On the other hand, a story from the Central News Agency suggests that the “New-Su-Alliance” (New Tide, Su Faction, plus He Zhiwei, who is associated with Su but is claiming an independent faction named the Green Friendship Alliance) was the big winner.  Did they mean that such an agglomeration exists or simply that the New Tide and the Su factions were the big winners?  Other media outlets, such as zhongguang radio, picked up this story and gave it the former interpretation.  Personally, I doubt there is a clear ruling faction.  Cai Tongrong is probably going to be in the opposition most of the time, but the other members will move in and out based on the question at hand and the shifting sands of power.  If she is a reasonably talented politician, Cai Yingwen should generally be able to form coalitions to suit her purposes.

I almost forgot to list the ex-officio members:

name	name	position
蔡英文	Cai Yingwen	Party chair
柯建銘	Ke Jianming	Legislative caucus leader
官碧玲	Guan Biling	Legislative caucus leader
潘孟安	Pan Meng’an	Legislative caucus leader
陳菊	Chen Ju	Kaohsiung mayor
蘇志芬	Su Zhifen	Yunlin County executive

No news article bothered to speculate on these people’s factional status.  I’m not sure at all, but if you forced me to guess, I think Ke gets along with and is trusted by everyone, Guan and Su are part of the Hsieh faction, and Pan belongs to the New Tide faction.  Chen Ju and Cai Yingwen head their own small power centers, though they are loosely allied with one another.

I was curious how things have changed since 2008, so I looked up a story in the China Times on the 2008 election.  Here’s how they described the CSC then.

name	name	faction	My comments
蔡同榮	Cai Tongrong		Taiwan independence fundamentalist
陳勝宏	Chen Shenghong		Father of He Zhiwei, so probably close to Su faction
陳明文	Chen Mingwen		Supported by New Tide
許添財	Xu Tiancai	Chen
羅文嘉	Luo Wenjia	Chen
段宜康	Duan Yikang	New Tide
徐佳青	Xu Jiaqing	New Tide
蘇志芬	Su Zhifen	Hsieh	Elected, not ex-officio
蔡憲浩	Cai Xianhao	Su
方昇茂	Fang Shengmao	You
蔡英文*	Cai Yingwen		Ex-officio, party chair
柯建銘*	Ke Jianming		Ex-officio, caucus leader
賴清德*	Lai Qingde	New Tide	Ex-officio, caucus leader
張花冠*	Zhang Huaguan		Ex-officio, caucus leader
楊秋興*	Yang Qiuxing	New Tide	Ex-officio, Kaohsiung County executive
陳菊*	Chen Ju		Ex-officio, Kaohsiung City Mayor; close to New Tide

The biggest change from two years ago is the decline of the ex-president’s faction.  Then, the Chen faction was still strong enough to put two of its members into the CSC.  The other thing that hits me is just how well the New Tide did two years ago.  They were described as one of the winners this year, but they arguably did better two years ago with claims on three of the ex-officio members.

Finally, I’m amused by statements that this election shows that the DPP’s intra-party democracy is a sham.  These statements are coming from both the KMT and from losers in this election, such as Annette Lu and Luo Wenjia.  They point to the organization involved, with people voting based on the instructions of their factions instead of listening to the appeals of various candidates as evidence that there is no democracy involved.  To that, I say pshaw!  Or maybe phooey!

The voters involved in this election are highly politicized and have strong opinions.  You simply aren’t going to change their minds about where they stand with a few speeches.  In the context of American politics, I consider myself to be what used to be called a “yellow-dog Democrat,” because I’ll vote for any candidate, even a yellow dog, as long as he’s a Democrat.  Does that mean that I am a mindless, brainless voter?  Of course not!  I understand the role that political parties play in the American system means that, based on my values, I always want the Democrat to win.  Even if there were an individual Republican who I preferred to the Democrat in a particular race, that Republican is sufficiently constrained by the other Republicans and by Republican voters that he or she will probably end up acting in ways that I don’t like as often as not.  So I have an easy vote decision: I vote straight ticket Democrat without needing to think very much.  Now, DPP internal factions are not the same as political parties, but the point is that these voters can make very good decisions about what is best for them and their values even when they are blindly voting according to instructions from their faction leaders.  In fact, one might go so far as to argue that by cooperating in this kind of organization, they are maximizing their influence.  Elections are, after all, a test of power.  Claiming an election is undemocratic is often the last refuge of losers.

As for the KMT, well, their last Central Standing Committee election featured so much vote-buying that the party chair cancelled the election.  If they are looking for an example of an election with questionable democratic credentials, they might start there.

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[i] I’m always shocked that they can’t come up with a better tiebreaking system.  With so few votes, there is always a tie to break.  There has got to be a better way.