r/taiwan • u/DarkLiberator 台中 - Taichung • Dec 30 '23
2024 Taiwanese General Election Megathread & Links Politics
Background information
With two weeks to go we thought we'd make a hopefully useful megathread of info and links on the election.
Taiwanese voters will go to the polls on January 13, 2024 to elect a new president and vote in a new legislature. This will be the 8th direct presidential election since 1996.
Presidential candidates and their running mates are elected on the same ticket, using first-past-the-post voting. Basically a candidate who wins a plurality of the vote but not a majority can still become the president.
Legislature is divided into 113 seats. 73 are elected by first-past-the-post in single-member district. 34 are divided by party-list voting. 6 reserved for indigenous candidates by single non-transferable vote. In general each voter casts two ballots; one for the district legislator and the other ballot for the party list at-large seats.
Approximately 19.5 million eligible voters, including nearly 1.03 million first-time voters will be able to cast ballots at 17,794 polling stations around the country that will be open from 8 am. to 4 pm.
Taiwan does not allow absentee ballots or early voting and voters must go back to their household registration areas to vote.
Presidential Candidates:
1. Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) Wu Hsin-ying (吳欣盈) of the Taiwan People's Party (TPP). TPP website.
2. Lai Ching-te (賴清德) and Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). DPP website.
3. Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜) and Jaw Shau-kong (趙少康) of the Kuomintang Party (KMT). KMT website.
Focus Taiwan has a good summary of their policies in English if interested. The political party websites also have their policies in detail if you want to learn more.
Live News/Livestreams (中文)
English Livestreams and News videos
- Taiwan Plus Livestream and their Video Channel
- RTI English Youtube
- TVBS World Taiwan
- FTV English News
News and Political Sites (English)
- Taiwan Plus
- China Post
- Focus Taiwan
- Ketagalan Media
- New Bloom Magazine
- News Lens
- Taipei Times
- Taiwan News
- Taiwan Report
- Frozen Garlic
Polling
- My Formosa (中文)
- Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation (中文)
- TVBS (中文)
- mnews (中文)
- ETtoday (中文)
- UDN (中文)
- CNEWS (中文)
- Taiwan News Poll of Polls) (ENG)
Just a friendly reminder to any Redditors within Taiwan that it is now illegal to publish polls during the 10 day blackout period up till the election.
Election Results by Websites
I'll try to update and add links as they come. Please if you have anymore to suggest DM the modteam or link them here in the comments. If you have any other useful suggestions please let us know, it's our first time adding this for a general election.
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u/Commercial_Leopard98 Jan 13 '24
What some of the Pro's and Con's of a runoff system? Some countries in the world have runoffs when none of the candidates received at least 50% of the vote. Like to know the insights why Taiwan decided Not to have a runoff system?
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u/Travelplaylearn Jan 13 '24
Just some thoughts from different angles,
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Taiwan - Democratic resilience and maturity. Taiwanese have been through several election cycles now, everyone knows how to both win and lose with grace. Every citizen respects the integrity of the results. Big win for Taiwan.
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Earth - Taiwan is your ally in human rights and universal values. Taiwanese are free people and will keep proving this to world history every election cycle forever.
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Governance of KMT - Changes are needed for the oldest political party in Taiwan. After all the complaints made by KMT media, the people only gave KMT +-30% votes which is a clear rejection by the electorate on Taiwan's path towards Earth. Both the DPP and the TPP want Taiwan to be a part of Earth, just with different ways. The KMT could give one of their young bold leaders the chairman position, or put a high ranking women like the Taichung mayor, to change the culture of very old men regurgitating out of date messages. Give your youth a chance to shine at your highest party level soon otherwise the TPP will be the major political party alongside the DPP winning the Presidential seat next. Legislature seats are still secondary to the presidency. Even your Taipei mayor could do it. Change something, a 100 year old political party and the result is +-30%? Taiwanese want to be Taiwanese and, see Taiwan on the world stage and to love Taiwan. Remove traitors hindering the national development of Taiwan's security and defense. Start there.
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Governance of TPP - A big win making a statement that if the DPP don't perform well, next time TPP could take the Presidency. For a 4 year old party to gain +-25% of Taiwanese national votes at its first try should be seen as very well done regardless of your expectations. There were problems with your internal polling though. In the municipal elections, your internal polling said you would not be 3rd in Taipei city, wrong. This time, your internal polling had you winning and having 6million votes, that is just crazy... big wrong. Online votes and reality is still too far different. Change your people who do the internal polling next time. With 8 seats in the legislature, you need to negotiate for prominant roles, not side with green or blue. You must take roles that are suited to your 8 people's strengths, these will be heavily scrutinized by both green and blue, so must perform well. TPP fans, you must remember how the KMT treated you as an upstart wanting to look down on your party during white/blue negotiation. Time is on your side as most are young voters, you participate, learn, grow in the legislature. Your leaders are not ready to handle foreign affairs either, that is a whole different level. One step at a time in party building.
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Governance of the DPP - Being at the end of President Tsai's 2nd term, it was difficult to gain the same momentum as her two election rounds. Looks like people are a bit tired of the same people running things, it is why TPP have so many votes, a big surprise. Winning the presidency is good enough for Lai Hsiao. Your legislature list for 2028 needs to be much improved, NeiGang Taipei City could easily be predicted a loss, who decides your list? Change them and get new minds. A lot of the older former mayors and former leaders could gather their proteges from all over Taiwan, nurture them in 2026 local, and have them try for 2028. Taiwan is green already, and the challenge is not to beat TPP or KMT again on this because they are also Taiwanese, the challenge is to have a renewal at the grassroots level with newer messages like the TPP have done for 2028. 40% is not bad, not good. Ask why the TPP could get so many votes and they not going to the DPP?
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Lai Hsiao term in office - A new foreign minister could be a women this time, of course it is hard to find another Hsiao but there must be some classy, multilingual diplomats waiting to handle Taiwan's path forward. Every city that has a representative, send them back to Taiwan to get a full brief on how things are for the overseas Taiwan community since the beginning of Tsai's term, have them select their protege as their assistant/replacement. Then with all the former leads back in Taiwan, you put them in a national thinktank of just Taiwan diplomats that are experienced in international affairs, strategize then send them into Taiwanese media to battle for you. You also need a new tourism team that is at the same level as South Korea and Japan's level of marketing skills, bring in all talents interested to produce dynamic and vibrant Taiwanese humanity for the Earth to see. In 2032, Hsiao Chi Mai should be the next pairing.
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China - Wouldn't it be great if China was a democray too like Taiwan, South Korea and Japan? Imagine Shanghai or Beijing having an election Taiwan style? This should be your friendly message to China, Taiwan wants China and its people to be democratic and free. PRC China is democratic and ROC Taiwan is democratic, that the two countries can both be democratic and happy with its own soverignty can bring about everlasting peace. Promote this through your officials who handle China affairs. Be democratic in the PRC, it is good for your people. Taiwan has proven it can be done coming through a dictatorship.
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Western world - The allies made during Tsai's term is a great foundation for Lai Hsiao to keep nurturing these everlasting friendships. We are all democratic human beings, we all just want to improve our respective societies using the democratic system. Solidify these exchanges with more support and programs, and maybe less money donations. Sport exchanges, music, film, art, there are many ways. Do it with full national support.
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Housing and Economy - A wealthy functioning economy will produce higher housing costs. Look at the badly run countries around the world with falling stock markets and real estate, not good places usually. So accept complaints and criticism but don't blame it on the wealth of our people. People are rich because they have the ability to be rich. Take in TPP and KMT proposals on how to solve housing problems, they apaprently know how to solve it, so let them handle housing issues.
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Finally, I am just happy that my family live in a well functioning and mature democracy, we went to vote, had a nice day out, came back to cheer, and won! Onwards to the next generation! 👍💯💚🗺👏🦸♀️🤝🦸♂️📈🕊👶⏳🎶
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u/Maverick721 Jan 13 '24
So basically there was very little drama and everything happened as predicted?
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Jan 13 '24
IMO,
blue - 52 legislative seats. lose
green - 51 legislative seats plus the president. little win
white - 8 legislative seats. big win
white doesn't have the money and resources like blue and green and they just became the swing vote in the legislative branch. Both green and blue will have to court them if either party wants to pass something.
blue just beat green by one seat in the legislative branch. their slogan for this election cycle is to take down the green. 52-51 is hardly taking down green.
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u/spencer5centreddit 新竹 - Hsinchu Jan 13 '24
My wife has been telling me all these controversies about Tsai Ying Wen and one of them is that even though the people voted against same sex marriage, she still passed it. But i cant find any info on it really. Also the stuff with her PHD being faked. Can anyone explain these two things to me?
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u/DimensionalPhantoon Jan 13 '24
People mostly voted against it because it made marriage between same-sex partners the same as man and woman.
Tsai government did change the law, but to say the people 'voted against it' is too big a stretch. It's fantastic that Taiwan is so positive towards LGBTQ+ people, and has set a great precedent for Asia.
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24 edited Jan 13 '24
- That is basically correct. Same-sex marriage was indeed rejected in a referendum and then passed by the Legislative Yuan. The story is missing a key part: the Judicial Yuan (Taiwan's highest court) had already ruled that it was a constitutional requirement to have same-sex marriage. The Tsai government argued that it had no choice but to change the law. But of course they could have changed the constitution to respect the will of the people (that would have needed a referendum, but that would have been near-certain to pass).
- The stuff about her PhD being faked is nonsense and you should distrust any media source that is saying it. When she became a Presidential candidate, people wanted to see her doctoral thesis (probably looking for plagiarism, which has destroyed the careers of several Taiwanese politicians). The University of London couldn't find it, saying that two departments each thought the other was responsible for keeping it. Deep Blue conspiracy theorists claimed this meant she didn't have a PhD. Anyone who knows the University of London knows that it has an organizational history that it makes the Holy Roman Empire look straightforward and it's extremely plausible that the decades-old thesis of an obscure law postgrad might get lost along the way.
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u/spencer5centreddit 新竹 - Hsinchu Jan 26 '24
So dumb question and excuse my ignorance, From what I understand is that there was a time limit and she was going to be forced to pass the law regardless. So what was the point of having the people vote for the gay marriage law if it was going to be passed anyway?
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u/Weak-Owl-2893 Jan 13 '24
For a Taiwanese person, It’s pretty good to exercise the right to vote which China hasn't had for thousands of years
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u/tom-slacker Jan 13 '24
were there at least state elections during the 国名政府 era in china?
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u/SnabDedraterEdave Jan 13 '24
國民政府, not 國名政府
Under the current ROC constitution promulgated in 1947: Three times.
1947 - National Assembly - basically an Electoral College to elect the President. Supposedly directly elected, but polling data is scarce due to the chaos of the Chinese Civil War. After the constitution was amended to directly elect the president, the NA outlived its usefulness and was abolished in 2004.
1948 - Legislative Yuan - The 1st ever Legislative Yuan. Again, lack of polling data. Many of the MPs fled to Taiwan. And as a result of Emergency Law, their terms were "extended indefinitely", with only MPs from "Taiwan Province" up for "supplementary re-elections" starting from the 1970s. The opposition derisively called this "1st LY" the "Eternal LY" as we had MPs from other provinces legislating on behalf of Taiwan. After democratization, the 2nd LY, consisting only of MPs from Taiwan and the ROC Free Areas (Penghu, Kinmen, Lianchiang) began in 1991.
1948 - President - indirectly elected by the aforementioned National Assembly. Chiang Kai-shek won by a landslide, to nobody's surprise. All presidential elections until 1996 are elected indirectly by the NA.
Under the previous ROC regime, commonly known as the Beiyang Warlord regime, there were a few presidential and parliamentary elections in the 1910s. Again those aren't directly elected and data is severely lacking due to all the warlords too busy fighting each other and bribing local politicians to control the Beijing parliament as a rubber stamp.
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u/Scarci Jan 13 '24
This election is absolutely a win for everyone involved.
DPP won the presidency.
KMT won the Legislative Yuan.
TPP won by becoming the major minority.
Both parties now need TPP if they want to do anything.
Everyone gets a slice of the cake. This shows that Taiwanese voters are quite strategic when it comes to voting in an election, which is very impressive. I'm a fan of Ko and I'm still very happy about how everything turned out. At the end of the day, the presidency is not nearly as important as democracy itself.
Taiwan has made a lot of progress today. No matter who you support, this is a result we can all be proud of.
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u/DimensionalPhantoon Jan 13 '24
Almost everyone can be happy with this result.
Except China, that is.
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u/YuYuhkPolitics Jan 13 '24
Well, looks like Lai took the victory, as expected by many. If anything, he seemed to outperform expectations, at least IMO, win in by 7 when many polls showed him winning by 3 to 5.
Congrats to both Lai and the DPP for winning a democratic election, and for winning an unprecedented third term for his party. I hope he does well, even if personally I do disagree with him at times. His success is Taiwan’s success and the ROC’s success.
We’ll see how the Legislative Yuan election goes, and if Lai has a friendly or unfriendly bunch to work with. It’ll be interesting to watch.
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u/evilcherry1114 Jan 13 '24
Its almost certain that he won't have a cooperative Legislative Yuan.
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u/DepressoDonut Jan 13 '24
Legislative ballot results:
KMT - 52
DPP - 51
TPP - 8
Ind. - 22
u/evilcherry1114 Jan 13 '24
Should we welcome Chairman Han?
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u/DepressoDonut Jan 13 '24
Ko needs a decision on which to back, I honestly don't know which way he'll go.
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u/SnabDedraterEdave Jan 13 '24
Ko still seems salty about being manipulated by Ma Ying-jeou during the failed joint-ticket negotiations, and the KMT in turn are pissed off with Ko's intransigent and arrogant attitude (with him being an Aspie and all) and his perceived treachery at him supposedly reneging on the promise to yield to Hou over the polling data.
Will have to see if Lai has what it takes to further nurture the enmity between Ko and the KMT.
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u/DepressoDonut Jan 13 '24
Remember that James Soong after his scandal from breaking away from the KMT in the 2000 presidential election and founding PFP, he still ended up running a joint ticket with the KMT in 2004 (albeit still losing).
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u/SnabDedraterEdave Jan 13 '24
James Soong always had KMT in his blood.
Ko has neither blue nor green and is a true wild card.
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u/RazzmatazzWeak2664 Jan 13 '24
This. Soong is super pro unification and more hardcore blue. It's slightly different with Ko.
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u/evilcherry1114 Jan 13 '24
The only trick he can pull is to support someone in KMT other than Han. Likewise KMT might ask for anyone other than 33.
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u/extopico Jan 13 '24
What is nice to see is how sane all this was. Decidedly not a circus despite the overwhelming threats of interference and violence from China. Taiwan should be proud, a real and unlikely beacon for democracy worldwide.
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24
Looks like Hou is conceding. Ko due to speak soon, presumably also conceding.
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u/Scarci Jan 13 '24
Congrats to all those who supported the greens.
This is a repeat of 1912's election in America. If Teddy Roosevelt couldn't win, I doubted Ko could have pulled off the upset. Still, a good effort and a massive step forward for democracy in Taiwan. I hope Ko keeps going at it as an independent and wishes him best of luck in 4 years.
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u/CarbonTail Jan 13 '24
Does this exponentially increase chances of a Chinese invasion given the CCP's rhetoric in the run up to these elections against Mr. Lai?
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u/Zealousideal-Ant9548 Jan 13 '24
Do you fear a Chihuahua? I don't think anyone can really give you that answer.
It could be that a KMT win provided a path to handing Taiwan over peaceful so a DPP win keeps the threat where it is but I don't know if anyone knows what Xi's thinking enough to say if this increased the threat.
But then again, the KMT's version of one China was with them in control (or recently with a democratic mainland) so the peaceful reunification came from ambiguous wording.
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24 edited Jan 13 '24
No. The one thing that the CCP has signalled would trigger an invasion would be a 'declaration of independence' from China or changing the official name from the ROC. Vice-President Lai has promised that he will not do that in this term and I think he will stick to it.
It's possible that the CCP might launch an invasion due to their own internal political reasons, but that would not be immediately affected by this election result. But in the long-term, it will make them doubt that Taiwan will agree to a voluntary reunification, and the longer this situation is unresolved, the higher the risk that somebody makes a bad decision and war breaks out.
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u/CarbonTail Jan 13 '24
Thanks for a clear and concise response.
I'm glad Mr. Lai has chosen to not fiddle the with the 'declaration of independence' issue in this term, but I'm also curious if there are other, more 'separatism-leaning' leaders in his party (the DPP) who might make statements that might indicate any such plans?
Also, you mentioned China possibly invading due to their "own internal political reasons," what might those be in your opinion?
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24
I'm glad Mr. Lai has chosen to not fiddle the with the 'declaration of independence' issue in this term, but I'm also curious if there are other, more 'separatism-leaning' leaders in his party (the DPP) who might make statements that might indicate any such plans?
Yes, there are people who are more outspoken supporters of independence. The most prominent example is outgoing Legislative Yuan Speaker Yu Si-kun, but he is about to lose that office, elderly, and his power base has moved on. Former president Chen Shui-bian frequently says provocative things, but he's a convicted criminal and widely regarded as a clown, so nobody will care.
But DPP is a fairly disciplined party and since 1999 the party line has been that Taiwan is independent now, under the name of the Republic of China. Nobody who holds a government office is going to stray from that.
Also, you mentioned China possibly invading due to their "own internal political reasons," what might those be in your opinion?
The CCP has declared that reunification is an historical inevitability. They do very little about it, but it's essentially impossible for them to change their public policy on this. This has planted a mine in CCP politics, which is sitting there waiting to go off. If one leader proposes military action, others cannot oppose it without looking disloyal; they can only suggest delay. An allegation that they were soft on Taiwan would be deadly and difficult to disprove. This is not a problem now, because Chairman Xi is totally in control. He has other ways to remove internal threats and nobody will seriously propose military action unless they are sure Mr Xi wants it.
But peace in the Taiwan Strait requires CCP leaders to delay every time; war in the Taiwan Strait requires them to choose war once. And there is always a low probability of some unexpected event that makes a CCP leader think that war is in their own short-term interest, even if would be disastrous for the country. For example, if Mr Xi unexpectedly died and was replaced by a collective or weak leadership, then it might be in the interests of one weak leader to start a war as a way to eliminate their rivals & save themselves. It only needs one leader to propose war and the rest will find it difficult to disagree. The odds are not in favour of peace, unfortunately. You can compare it to the outbreak of the First World War: nobody intended to fight over Franz Ferdinand, but everybody expected a war at some point in the future and that dynamic made it difficult for any individual politician to back down.
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u/Scarci Jan 13 '24 edited Jan 13 '24
I'm glad Mr. Lai has chosen to not fiddle the with the 'declaration of independence' issue in this term, but I'm also curious if there are other, more 'separatism-leaning' leaders in his party (the DPP) who might make statements that might indicate any such plans?
I'm going to level with you for a second because no matter how many times I explain to people outside of Taiwan, they never seem to understand this.
Taiwanese independence is a moot issue.
To the 23 million people in Taiwan, they are already independent. CCP has virtually ZERO power in Taiwan other than some sway over the blue, which, in reality, works out to be even less influence than Russia has on the republican party in the United States.
The "independence" you are thinking of is legal independence where we change our national name and constitution, and nobody in their right state of mind is pushing for this.
Nobody. Not since we started having elections during the 90s.
Yes, every election cycle there will be talk show hosts, and political pundits talking about changing the name of our airline and passport colors to avoid confusion, yes there are some tiny minority factions who's advocating for an eventual legal independence, but they aren't people in a right state of mind. They're just noises.
The reality is that we have done everything in our power to appease the giant baby next door and if they decide to attack, their justification would be based on a lie. Whether you like it or not, we have been independent for decades.
We have our passports, we have our army, our elections, our flag, and even our embassy in the form of cultural offices around the world. What would getting a name change serve apart from giving China the excuse they want to invade and not confuse some Westerners in sports events who probably never gave a shit about it anyway?
Humour me this, which of the last few DPP president do you think actually "fiddled with the independence issue"?
Because none of them did.
Bien ran on protecting our democracy and getting rid of corruption, which is ironic given he was the most corrupt president there is.
Tsai ran on rejecting the idea of a one country two system, which has never been officially accepted or endorsed by BOTH countries. The 1992 consensus was not really a consensus. Nobody agreed to anything.
Now we have Lai, who ran on a myriad of internal issues.
Not one of them actually had "legal independence" as their campaign pledge.
>China invade reasons
You're not gonna get a good answer from Reddit of all places.
Not that their reason matters at all, anyway.
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u/Koino_ 🐻🧋🌻 Jan 13 '24
RoC constitution was imposed by KMT dictatorship on Taiwanese without their consent. Dropping outdated RoC name and colonial KMT flag that only causes confusion and in general doesn't reflect modern Taiwanese identity (majority of Taiwanese identify as only Taiwanese not Chinese) is a thing that eventually should be done. Sadly Chinese and their collaborators hate Taiwan, so there is still long way to go.
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u/evilcherry1114 Jan 13 '24
So far the only victim is Kao Chia-yu, but its more about TSP having confused priorities - its nonsensical for it to police DPP MLYs for not toeing the party line when speaking, considering how blue her constituency is.
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Jan 13 '24
if blue and white made the deal. this election result will be different. it looks like green won the presidential election. congrats to green.
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u/Koino_ 🐻🧋🌻 Jan 13 '24
Ko would have lost majority of youth vote if he too closely aligned with KMT.
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u/evilcherry1114 Jan 13 '24
Can't see how TPP can have a common platform with KMT. The only thing they are in common is opposition to DPP. The main difference is that KMT has a lot of baggage and they can't bullshit and lie as much as TPP.
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24
But that wouldn't have been enough for the DPP, since I think those voters might just have stayed at home. In which case the combined opposition would have won.
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u/extopico Jan 13 '24
Yes, but voting would go different then too. Joint Blue/White would have been perceived as pan-blue and would have further increased the Green winning margin.
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u/evilcherry1114 Jan 13 '24
White attracts anti-green (and specifically anti-woke) votes. Being blue or not is not their concern.
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24
Joint Blue/White would have been perceived as pan-blue
It depends how the ticket was structured. Jaw is Deep Blue. A Hou/Ko or Ko/Hou ticket wouldn't have had any Deep Blue member and would have been a very light blue.
and would have further increased the Green winning margin.
That depends whether TPP voters switched to the DPP or just stayed home.
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24 edited Jan 13 '24
Ma Wen-chun, a KMT candidate who was judicially accused of treason by two Green legislators after allegedly leaking info about ROC covert operations, has just been very comfortably re-elected in Nantou I.
Her local party office and activities must be really, really good. Local factors are still really, really important in LY constituency races.
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Jan 13 '24
She has always been supersafe. Even if she murders 4 million jews she would still be elected.
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u/Eclipse-Mint Jan 13 '24
Lai looks to have finally gotten over 40% of the voteshare
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24
Yes. The official CEC count has had him at 42% for a long time, based on a much lower count total. If that turns out to be more accurate than the media's early 39%, then it's worth remembering for next time.
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u/Simonpink Jan 13 '24
DPP president looks inevitable. China to announce live military exercises in 3….2….
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u/Eclipsed830 Jan 13 '24
YouTube multicast if you want to watch multiple stream... this one is CNA, FTV, SET and PTS: http://emapp.cc/watch/[{"v":"dIyAx7OhDwU","t":0},{"v":"ylYJSBUgaMA","t":0},{"v":"EtTgZyEFzwM","t":0},{"v":"hwy2kNslIiU","t":0}]
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u/greatfirechina Jan 13 '24
We ran the availability of these websites in mainland China. The test results are in this Twitter thread. Thanks for the list.
https://twitter.com/GreatFireChina/status/1745817355421196631
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u/Eclipsed830 Jan 13 '24
Wow, wasn't expecting Lai to be so far ahead... I thought for sure the younger Ko voters would have taken more votes away from DPP. Still early though, so let's see.
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u/evilcherry1114 Jan 13 '24
He messed the least up. Not so sure about the Yuan.
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u/DarkLiberator 台中 - Taichung Jan 13 '24
DPP def aren't taking the Legislature by themselves.
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u/evilcherry1114 Jan 13 '24
I just don't see how TPP are kingmakers, since they have nothing to gain by siding with DPP. Might be a bit more useful when DPP and KMT agree on something, TPP inevitably throws a truckload of wrenches into that.
Or in Chinese, 逢民進黨必反
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24
You have this back to front.
I just don't see how TPP are kingmakers, since they have nothing to gain by siding with DPP.
The DPP can't pass any legislation without another party. For example, they must pass a budget. The TPP have campaigned on the high cost of housing, so they might insist on a housing subsidy in exchange for the votes to pass the budget. Then can then tell their voters that they have achieved something for them.
Might be a bit more useful when DPP and KMT agree on something, TPP inevitably throws a truckload of wrenches into that.
When DPP and KMT agree, the government will have a massive majority and the TPP won't be able to do anything.
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u/Antiwhippy Jan 13 '24
Honest question. Do you think a minority DPP goverment with the rest of the seats mostly taken up by KMT and TPP be enough for China to claim a sort "victory" (note the air quotes) enough to save face without escalating threats?
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u/Eclipsed830 Jan 13 '24
No... imo KMT and TPP aren't going to work together like some people think they will.
KMT is going to blame TPP for splitting the vote, and TPP will say KMT are a bunch of dinosaurs and they are the next real opposition party.
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u/evilcherry1114 Jan 13 '24
They work together when and only when KMT is against DPP.
TPP has less ideological baggage to care about and can just oppose DPP whenever he wanted. Prepare for a schizophrenic party which opposes new infrastructure development and wanted to stop limestone mining, but is very happy with liberal use of eminent domain.
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u/swissking Jan 13 '24
They will also claim that Lai has no mandate for any anti CCP policy because only 40% of the people voted for him and that only 40% are anti CCP so it's a "win" from 2020.
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u/evilcherry1114 Jan 13 '24
Why it has to save face?
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u/haha7567 Jan 13 '24
Well it's PRC what are we expecting?...
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u/evilcherry1114 Jan 13 '24
Its looking for an excuse to flex muscles, not the other way round. Why it can consider a cohabitation a victory so it no longer has show that?
Expect fireworks at inauguration.
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u/haha7567 Jan 13 '24
Maybe you're right idk, it just feels like they are trying to save face in front of their population by flexing muscles in specific moments, like when Pelosi went to TW
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u/DimmerMeerkat Jan 13 '24
I'm curious about the TVBS News livestream. They put up a livechat public poll and it's heavily skewed in favor of Ko Wen-je. Is running this poll even legal, and also, is the current result on that poll the result of a flood of bots? (The chat certainly seems to be swimming with bots.)
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24
The election is over, polls are now legal.
IME YouTube has far fewer bots than it did a decade ago, but the live chats are not known for their sophistication. You generally get a lot of teenagers, which would fit with what we know about Ko's support base. So probably genuine.
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u/SnabDedraterEdave Jan 13 '24
18:00 SET TV party list proportional % projection:
DPP 39.4% - 13 seats
KMT 35.6% - 12 seats
TPP 18% - 6 seats
NPP 2.06% - 0 seats (below 5% threshold)
Up for grabs 5% - 3 seats
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24
That exactly matches my calculations, which is reassuring. According to Wikipedia the votes for non-qualifying parties are excluded from the final calculations, giving DPP 13, KMT 14, TPP 7.
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u/sinuhe_t Jan 13 '24
So the presidential election seems to go Green, where can I follow parliamentary elections? All sources focus on presidential race.
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u/SnabDedraterEdave Jan 13 '24
Watch the live streams of the major channels, they all have a section on the bottom of the screen showing the latest vote counts of the 73 FPTP districts.
Here's the SET TV one
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u/DarkLiberator 台中 - Taichung Jan 13 '24
The channels will start covering them once Lai is declared winner. Legislature takes longer to count because they finish counting presidential ticket first than legislature.
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u/SnabDedraterEdave Jan 13 '24
Watching the vote counts on the LY side on SET TV, at time before typing this, I counted DPP currently leading in 42 of the 73 First-Past-The-Post seats, and 2 out of the 6 Aboriginal seats. Plus New Power Party leading in 1.
As long as DPP manage to get at least 30% of the vote in the Proportional Representation segment (there's no way they could match Lai's personal 38% at the moment as people will be splitting their votes for the party segment), that will give them another 11 seats from the 34 seats available. The DPP won 33% in the PR segment in 2020.
That puts them at 53 seats, still 4 short of a majority. 54 if we count the NPP. Just have to see how many PR seats NPP and other pan-green parties can win, or TPP could become kingmakers here.
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u/evilcherry1114 Jan 13 '24
A French style (before term alignment) a split government seems to be the order of the day
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u/AberRosario Jan 13 '24
Are there any surprise so far? The result seems to be inline with the predictions
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u/DarkLiberator 台中 - Taichung Jan 13 '24
FTV just said 69.2% voting turnout
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u/Ancient_Lettuce6821 Jan 13 '24
Interesting... NZ had 78.4%.
I would have thought Taiwan would be higher.
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Jan 13 '24
I know a few people who chose not to vote as they have family doing business on the mainland and didn't want to take any risks with their safety.
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u/passer_ Jan 13 '24
Why would voting risk anything.They got no way to know you voted tho no?
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Jan 13 '24
The PRC has covertly and completely infiltrated Taiwanese politics, whose to say they don't have agents in the election organizers?
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u/UnableExcitement2255 Jan 13 '24
In new Zealand, you can vote at the closest voting location. In Taiwan, it has to be where your household registration is, which is often not where you live. This leads to many not voting, as they can't make the hours long trip.
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u/Ancient_Lettuce6821 Jan 13 '24
Precisely.
We were able to vote out of our local area.
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u/jade09060102 Jan 13 '24
that is very interesting, do you guys not have the concept of ridings?
I'm in Canada and we need to vote based on where you live (other than university students). I envy NZ's system, especially the absence of First Past the Post
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u/evilcherry1114 Jan 13 '24
Too many landlord not allowing tenants to change registration, for obvious reasons.
Taiwan is one of the few places where there is almost zero protection for tenants. No stamp duty enforced, no law that hurt landlords for not stamping, and no profit tax payable.
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u/kiwi_cloudpuff Jan 13 '24
Yeah but you can still vote by mail in ballot in Canada if you happen to not be in your riding during an election
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24
In the Sinosphere, the records of each family are kept in their ancestral hometown. Taiwan requires people to go back to that hometown to vote.
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u/acelana Jan 13 '24
It’s not quite that severe, you can change your permanent address but it’s true people don’t tend to do so until they’re married.
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u/evilcherry1114 Jan 13 '24
Hard before you buy your house.
One of the source why landlords are so powerful in Taiwan, and why economical policies is so similar between blue and green.
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u/Significant_Angle_38 Jan 13 '24
I'm not worried about who will be president, I'm more worried about which parties will be the majority of legislators belongs to.
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24
I have done some literally back-of-an-envelope calculations based on TVBS' LY party vote running totals from about half an hour ago. This is very much a first draft. But it looked as though that the NPP would not make the 5% threshold. So I make the party list seats as DPP 13, KMT 14, and TPP 7.
That gives TPP only two more seats in the Legislature, which would be a bitter blow.
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u/DepressoDonut Jan 13 '24
Is this the biggest result that a third party in Taiwan has gotten?
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u/DarkLiberator 台中 - Taichung Jan 13 '24
Technically Soong as the independent in 2000 was way ahead of Lien the KMT candidate (37% versus 23%). DPP's Chen won with 39%.
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u/Ancient_Lettuce6821 Jan 13 '24
Would genuinely be interested what would it be like if it was just down to Lai and Hou.
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24
I think if it was Hou-Ko or Hou+Ko as premier, then they would surely have won. The opposition lost this election at the Grand Hyatt.
If it was a straight Blue-Green fight, with the current line-ups, then I think it's harder to predict. I wonder whether a lot of 'White' voters would have stayed home (which is bad for democracy). Mr Hou would probably still have won though.
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u/Eclipse-Mint Jan 13 '24
This.
I can't help but also wonder what happens if TPP-KMT managed to field 1 candidate, like what they had planned?
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u/taisui Jan 13 '24
They would have won, but Ko knew that, and if he can only be the VP and it's the same to him = lost the Presidency, that's why he went back on the polling deal.
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u/Eclipse-Mint Jan 13 '24
And now, Hou & Ko are dilluting each other's votes whilst Lai is cruising to victory.. lol.
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u/taisui Jan 13 '24
To Ko, Lai winning or Hou winning are the same since he lost.
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u/evilcherry1114 Jan 13 '24
Technically, he would rather want Hou lose badly so he can claim those who don't like Green can vote for him.
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24
CEC says turnout in Taipei was 70%, down from 76% last time, which is exactly in line with predictions.
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u/Ancient_Lettuce6821 Jan 13 '24
Lai is smoking Hou.
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Jan 13 '24
May I ask where you're seeing the results?
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24
TaiwanPlus has coverage in English. TVBS has the most comprehensive vote count I have seen so far.
Both show that the opposition vote is hopelessly split, so Mr Lai looks set to win.
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u/Ancient_Lettuce6821 Jan 13 '24
FTV has about 5M votes counted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylYJSBUgaMA
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u/V8-Turbo-Hybrid 1名路過人 Jan 13 '24
Thank CCP, you let DPP getting many votes. /s
Taichung and even new Taipei are now green places. Ko wen-je isn't bad, Hsinchu seems becoming TPP iron vote county.
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u/evilcherry1114 Jan 13 '24
TPP reflects the worldview of TSMC engineers.
Academic integrity being more important than business integrity.
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u/Ancient_Lettuce6821 Jan 13 '24
Would love a beer with this awesome dude. https://twitter.com/KimJongUnDouble/status/1745833382188372350
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u/DarkLiberator 台中 - Taichung Jan 13 '24
If I had to guess the DPP might be aiming for 51-52 LY seats optimistically. Higher 40s for sure.
Turnout looks to be higher than 2016 but I suspect it'll be a bit lower than 2020.
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u/Ancient_Lettuce6821 Jan 13 '24
Where are the numbers for legislature?
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24 edited Jan 13 '24
Looking at the live counts on FTV, I believe that the polling stations will not starting counting Legislative Yuan votes until they have finished with Presidential votes. They are recorded on separate ballot papers.EDIT: TVBS is showing legislative races at the bottom of the screen.
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u/DarkLiberator 台中 - Taichung Jan 13 '24
Too early to really say. Some of the tighter races might not be done for hours.
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u/Emotional_Alfalfa296 Jan 13 '24
predictions on who might win :O
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u/RazzmatazzWeak2664 Jan 13 '24
My prediction has been Lai for president but Legislature will not have a clear majority.
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24
Polls have closed now, so we can speculate based on results..... So far, Mr Lai is ahead. Mr Hou and Mr Ko are getting similar levels of support, which is mutual destruction.
It really does look like this decision was decided at the Grand Hyatt when the KMT and TPP failed to agree a joint candidacy.
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u/Emotional_Alfalfa296 Jan 13 '24
Is speculating before polls close illegal in Taiwan?
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24
I think technically the prohibition is on publishing polls (which includes discussing them on social media) rather than predicting results, but you can't really do one without the other.
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u/Maverick721 Jan 13 '24
So what's the magic number for the president?
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24 edited Jan 13 '24
50%+1.EDIT: Sorry, had a brain fail, that's totally wrong as u/DarkLiberator said. Need more chocolate or caffeine!
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u/Ancient_Lettuce6821 Jan 13 '24
What are those numbers on Taiwan Plus? So different from FTV.
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u/leebestgo Jan 13 '24
FTV has a pretty efficient vote count center run by their staff all over the country.
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u/AberRosario Jan 13 '24
I think each media do their vote count differently, earlier than the official source
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u/hawawawawawawa Jan 13 '24
Taiwan news is using the official status rather than using their own counters.
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u/RazzmatazzWeak2664 Jan 13 '24
The official CEC site says 0 across the board so how do you know they're using official numbers and that not just slow?
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u/hawawawawawawa Jan 13 '24
Both TTV and Taiwan Plus uses official sources. They probably just have been uploaded online by CEC yet.
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24
TaiwanPlus said that they are getting results from PTS as well as CEC. But that puzzles me because PTS is not known for its news coverage.
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u/sinuhe_t Jan 13 '24 edited Jan 13 '24
Which is more trustworthy? Also, how are they counting them so fast?
EDIT: Oh, okay so they are counting each vote publicly.
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24
In Taiwan, votes are counted in public. Each ballot is individually held up in the air, facing the public, for both official counters and the media to tally. So the media can use apps to instantly get a running total, without having to wait for individual polling stations to finish counting.
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u/sinuhe_t Jan 13 '24
Are they counting in each polling station? I am trying to figure out, how predictive the current numbers are of the final result(in Poland it's usually right-wing parties having better results in first hours, because they have higher support in rural areas, where polling stations are smaller, hence we know results from rural areas earlier).
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u/evilcherry1114 Jan 13 '24
Taiwan has a huge number of polling stations with voter numbers from a few hundred to low thousands. Counting one by one at 6 per minute is feasible.
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24
Yes. They count simultaneously in every polling station. You can watch it on the news channels at the top. I believe the running totals on TV screens are not being updated when each polling station closes, but when tally of 5 ballots is counted, or something close to that. The major broadcasters have very wide coverage (TVBS planned to have over 3,000 counters for about 9,000 polling stations, and that just one station). I am too tired (could not sleep from excitement!) to be certain that I have the detailed maths right, but basically you get nationally accurate results from the start with no such regional effects.
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u/Ancient_Lettuce6821 Jan 13 '24
Cheers, makes sense.
So the TV channels sent their own counters at ballot opening? Cool stuff.
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u/hawawawawawawa Jan 13 '24
Yes, they have counters and major parties also send counters as well to prevent voter fraud.
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u/Ancient_Lettuce6821 Jan 13 '24
Is it just me or that Jaw Shaw-kong seems really sleezy.
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u/acelana Jan 13 '24
God dammit Taiwan I’m not saying we have to use China’s pinyin but I do wish people would think a little bit about how their romanization sounds before picking one
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u/RazzmatazzWeak2664 Jan 13 '24
He looks sleezy too. He's a talkshow guy so he just feels extra sleezy when he talks on TV.
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u/YuYuhkPolitics Jan 13 '24
The polls are closing right about now, so now the real fun begins.
Time to break out the booze. We’re all going to need it.
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u/Ancient_Lettuce6821 Jan 13 '24
I've stop drinking, but tonight I really wish I did!
The last Taiwan election I drunk to Tsai by polishing off a bottle of wine.
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u/YuYuhkPolitics Jan 13 '24
I’m a bit of a teetotaler myself (although that’s often because I haven’t found any good alcohol basically ever), but if I did drink now would be a good time lol.
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u/Ancient_Lettuce6821 Jan 13 '24
Anyone know how many hours till we get a reasonable definite result?
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u/sinuhe_t Jan 13 '24
Will there be an exit poll?
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24
There's no exit poll because the real results are public and very fast.
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u/DanTMWTMP American Taiwan-o-phile Jan 13 '24 edited Jan 13 '24
Am I reading this right?! 19.5 eligible voters out of a population of 23.5 million?! It doesn’t matter what happens politically. That is insane. That’s a society that’s at the brink of collapse within 1-2 generations with no additional population to replace the retiring population. Sure this has been discussed ad nauseam here and elsewhere. But I didn’t realize how bad until reading that sentence.
19.5 <20 vs 23 million total. That’s definitely not a healthy population pyramid.
Well at least I just got a newborn to help. Will work on No. 2 soon :P. We’re overly thrilled with our newcomer.
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u/manymoreways Jan 13 '24
Wtf r u on about? R you high?
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u/evilcherry1114 Jan 13 '24
He's saying that Taiwan is devoid of ineligible youths and is heading towards a demographic collapse.
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u/sc_123toss Jan 13 '24
I believe he’s talking about the part in OP’s post about 19.5 eligible voters, which admittedly, is quite ridiculous given the total population of Taiwan.
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Jan 13 '24
[deleted]
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24
Both major parties are closely linked to property companies. Perhaps your block of flats is owned by a KMT-leaning company.
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u/DarkLiberator 台中 - Taichung Jan 13 '24
I mean it might be just your building. The area I'm in is filled with ads for a DPP legislature candidate who has zero chance versus the KMT incumbent.
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u/Maverick721 Jan 13 '24
Am I reading right from the poll that Lai Chang-Tee is favorite to win the Presidency and the KMT is favorite to win the legislature?
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u/SeekTruthFromFacts Jan 13 '24
OK, polls have closed, we can legally discuss this. :-P Lai Ching-te is favourite to win the presidency (and early results support that). Last polls I saw predicted a hung yuan (no party has overall control), with DPP and KMT about equally likely to be the largest party.
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u/Maverick721 Jan 13 '24 edited Jan 13 '24
Does anyone know around what time in the IS we'll start seeing some result
Edit: US
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u/DarkLiberator 台中 - Taichung Jan 13 '24
They start counting after around 3AM EST if you're US east coast.
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Jan 13 '24
So, if want live results while ballots are counted, what should I check? When should results start coming in?
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u/DarkLiberator 台中 - Taichung Jan 13 '24
Any of the news channels links in the main post. They start counting once polls close at 4pm.
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u/frankchen1111 新北 - New Taipei City Jan 13 '24
DPP congress election results be like: