A victory for diversity

I’m really too exhausted to write anything in depth about the election results. So instead of a full recap, let me just touch on diversity and pluralism. Taiwan has set new highs in both the proportion of women and indigenous legislators.

By my count, 43 of the 113 legislators will be women. That makes 38.1%. Around the world, the top three countries for percentage of women in the national parliament are Rwanda, Bolivia, and Cuba. Um, how do I say this politely? Those are not exactly the countries we want to emulate. Let’s restrict the comparison to only countries that are rated as “free” in the latest Freedom House report. Of these, Taiwan now places 10^th in the world in the proportion of women in its national legislature. Moreover, of the top 20 countries, only Norway, Germany, and now Taiwan also have a female head of government. This places Taiwan as a world leader for gender equality in the political realm. Moreover, it is notable that Tsai is not from a political family. Unlike almost all other Asian female leaders, Tsai did not inherit her power. In fact, Tsai is not unique among female politicians in Taiwan. Former VP Annette Lu, Kaohsiung mayor Chen Chu, and vice-speaker and erstwhile KMT presidential nominee Hung Hsiu-chu also rose to very powerful positions in the political structure, and none of them came from a political family.

 

Rank	Country	% Female	Female Head of Government
1	Sweden	43.6
2	Senegal	42.7
3	South Africa	42.0
4	Finland	41.5
5	Iceland	41.3
6	Spain	41.1
7	Norway	39.6	Yes
8	Andorra	39.3
8	Belgium	39.3
10	Taiwan (post-election)	38.1	Yes
11	Denmark	37.4
12	Netherland	37.3
13	Slovenia	36.7
14	Germany	36.5	Yes
15	Serbia	34.0
16	Costa Rica	33.3
16	Grenada	33.3
18	El Salvador	32.1
19	Switzerland	32.0
20	New Zealand	31.4
.
	United Kingdom	29.4
	Canada	25.8
	United States	19.4
	Korea	16.3	Yes
	Japan	9.5

 

This has been a gradual process. Women have slowly built their share of seats over the past 25 years. This gives me confidence that women are winning real power and that those gains are sustainable.

 

	district	list	all women	total seats	% women
1992	12	5	17	161	10.6%
1995	19	4	23	164	14.0%
1998	35	8	43	225	19.1%
2001	39	11	50	225	22.2%
2004	32	15	47	225	20.9%
2008	17	17	34	113	30.1%
2012	20	18	38	113	33.6%
2016	25	18	43	113	38.1%

 

This year is also a milestone for indigenous representation. In addition to the six legislators elected from indigenous districts, two others were elected on the DPP and NPP party lists. Eight indigenous legislators is not a record in the absolute sense, but does mark a new high in the percentage of seats held by indigenous legislators.

	district	list	all indigenous	total seats	% indigenous
1992	6	0	6	161	3.7%
1995	6	1	7	164	4.3%
1998	8	1	9	225	4.0%
2001	8	2	10	225	4.4%
2004	8	1	9	225	4.0%
2008	6	1	7	113	6.2%
2012	6	0	6	113	5.3%
2016	6	2	8	113	7.1%

 

In most countries, if there are seats reserved for indigenous people, the goal is to allow them to be represented in numbers proportional to their share of the overall population. In other words, the goal is to prevent them from being underrepresented. Taiwan has made a different choice. In Taiwan, voters with indigenous status make up about 1.5% of the population, but they now hold over7% of the seats in the national legislature. Taiwan has chosen to significantly over-represent indigenous people.

This effort to give voice to women and minorities speaks to the pride that Taiwanese have in their diverse and pluralistic society.

 

 

On a related note, the DPP has set a party record for performance in indigenous districts, and by quite a margin.

	DPP	valid	vote share	seats won
1992	3769	113164	3.3%	0
1995	3555	130769	2.7%	0
1998	9676	136387	7.1%	0
2001	10048	155888	6.4%	0
2004	14149	144827	9.8%	1
2008	10130	149880	6.8%	0
2012	9968	214843	4.6%	0
2016	33710	207572	16.2%	1

Since we’re talking about DPP records, they set a new high for presidential elections in all of the 22 cities and counties. In fact, they beat their previous high for any type of election (presidential, mayoral, legislative) in 11 of the 22 cities and counties.

	prez	%	Any race	%	2016
Taipei	2004	43.5	1998 mayor	45.9	52.0	**
New Taipei	2004	46.9	2001 mayor	51.3	54.8	**
Taoyuan	2004	44.7	1997 mayor	56.2	51.0	*
Taichung	2004	50.0	2014 mayor	57.1	55.0	*
Tainan	2004	62.0	2014 mayor	72.9	67.5	*
Kaohsiung	2004	56.9	2014 mayor	68.1	63.4	*
Yilan	2004	57.7	2014 mayor	64.0	62.1	*
Hsinchu County	2004	35.9	1989 mayor	51.1	42.5	**
Miaoli	2004	39.3	2004 prez	39.3	45.5	**
Changhua	2004	52.3	2014 mayor	53.7	56.5	**
Nantou	2004	48.8	1995 LY	50.7	52.2	**
Yunlin	2004	60.3	2009 mayor	65.4	63.4	*
Chiayi County	2004	62.8	2014 mayor	63.1	65.4	**
Pingtung	2004	58.1	2014 mayor	62.9	63.5	**
Taitung	2004	34.5	2009 mayor	47.4	36.9	*
Hualien	2004	29.8	1997 mayor	43.2	38.4	*
Penghu	2004	49.5	2014 mayor	55.3	50.8	*
Keelung	2004	40.6	2014 mayor	53.2	48.2	*
Hsinchu City	2004	44.9	1997 mayor	56.1	51.2	*
Chiayi City	2004	56.1	2004 prez	56.1	59.9	**
Kinmen	2012	8.2	2012 prez	8.2	18.0	**
Matsu	2012	8.0	2012 prez	8.0	16.5	**

*DPP record high for presidential races; ** DPP record high for any election

 

I’ll dig more into the results over the next few days. For now, let me just say that this was a tremendous electoral victory for the DPP and a devastating defeat for the KMT.