KMT loses seniority in LY

A lot of KMT incumbents lost last Saturday, and many of them were quite senior. I thought I’d add up all the seniority that the KMT lost in the massacre. For example, Lee Ching-hua, who lost in New Taipei 12, was first elected in 1992 and has served seven terms. There were nineteen such losers in the 73 district races:

name	name	district	Terms
丁守中	Ting Shou-chung	Taipei 1	7
林郁方	Lin Yu-fang	Taipei 5	5
吳育昇	Wu Yu-sheng	New Taipei 1	3
黃志雄	Huang Chih-hsiung	New Taipei 5	2
江惠貞	Chiang Hui-chen	New Taipei 7	1
張慶忠	Chang Ching-chung	New Taipei 8	3
盧嘉辰	Lu Chia-chen	New Taipei 10	2
李慶華	Lee Ching-hua	New Taipei 12	7
陳根德	Chen Ken-te	Taoyuan 1	5
廖正井	Liao Cheng-ching	Taoyuan 2	2
楊麗環	Yang Li-huan	Taoyuan 4	4
孫大千	Sun Ta-chien	Taoyuan 6	4
楊瓊瓔	Yang Chiung-ying	Taichung 3	5
蔡錦隆	Tsai Chin-lung	Taichung 4	3
林國正	Lin Kuo-cheng	Kaohsiung 9	1
林滄敏	Lin Tsang-min	Changhua 2	3
鄭汝芬	Cheng Ju-fen	Changhua 3	2
王進士	Wang Chin-shih	Pingtung 2	2
王廷升	Wang Ting-sheng	Hualien	2

That’s 19 KMT incumbents who ran for re-election but lost on Saturday. They collectively had 68 terms of seniority. But wait, there’s more. There were several KMT district legislators who did not make it to the ballot. Some of them lost in the primary, and some of them voluntarily retired. However, in political science we tend to look at “voluntary” retirements somewhat skeptically. Often the person would like to continue in office, but he or she makes a judgment that re-election is quite unlikely and chooses to “retire.” So I’m going to list all the KMT district incumbents who didn’t make it to the final ballot.

name	name	district		Terms
羅淑蕾	Lo Shu-lei	Taipei 3	*	3
蔡正元	Alex Tsai	Taipei 4	*	4
林鴻池	Lin Hung-chih	New Taipei 6		3
徐欣瑩	Hsu Hsin-ying	Hsinchu County	*	1
張嘉郡	Chang Chia-chun	Yunlin 1		2
翁重鈞	Weng Chung-chun	Chiayi 1		7
謝國樑	Hsieh Kuo-liang	Keelung		3
呂學樟	Lu Hsueh-chang	Hsinchu City		4

* KMT held the seat with a different candidate.

Nine KMT district incumbents didn’t make it to the final ballot. They collectively had 28 terms of seniority. However, this is a little misleading. The KMT held onto three of the nine seats. In fact, Hsu Hsin-ying had already defected from the KMT to form the MKT, so maybe we should consider the KMT to have regained the Hsinchu County seat. Anyway, the six KMT districts who retired and whose seats were taken by the DPP had a collective 20 terms of seniority.

[Maybe I should mention Hau Lung-bin, who wasn’t an incumbent legislator but did serve two terms back in the 1990s.]

If you are counting at home, that makes 25 KMT district incumbents whose seats were taken by the green side. Those 25 KMT legislators had a total of 83 terms under their belts, or an average of 3.3 terms each. That adds up to roughly 300 years of seniority. To put that in perspective, the 24 KMT candidates who won district or indigenous seats only have a total of 48 terms.

name	name	district	Terms
蔣萬安	Chiang Wan-an	Taipei 3	0
李彥秀	Lee Yan-hsiu	Taipei 4	0
蔣乃辛	Chiang Nai-hsin	Taipei 6	2
費鴻泰	Alex Fai	Taipei 7	3
賴士葆	Lai Shih-bao	Taipei 8	4
林德福	Lin Teh-fu	New Taipei 9	4
羅明才	Luo Ming-tsai	New Taipei 11	5
陳學聖	Apollo Chen	Taoyuan 3	3
呂玉玲	Lu Yu-ling	Taoyuan 5	1
顏寬恒	Yen Kuan-heng	Taichung 2	1
盧秀燕	Lu Hsiu-yen	Taichung 5	5
江啟臣	Chiang Chi-chen	Taichung 8	1
林為洲	Lin Wei-chou	Hsinchu County	1
陳超明	Chen Chao-ming	Miaoli 1	2
徐志榮	Hsu Chih-jung	Miaoli 2	1
王惠美	Wang Hui-mei	Changhua 1	1
馬文君	Ma Wen-chun	Nantou 1	2
許淑華	Hsu Shu-hua	Nantou 2	1
楊鎮浯	Yang Chen-wu	Kinmen	0
陳雪生	Chen Hsueh-sheng	Lienchiang	1
鄭天財	Sra．Kacaw	Lowland Indigenous	1
廖國棟	Sufin．Siluko	Lowland Indigenous	4
孔文吉	Kung Wen-chi	Highland Indigenous	3
簡東明	Uliw．Qaljupayare	Highland Indigenous	2

 

With all that experience wiped away, the next KMT caucus is going to have a very different set of internal dynamics.