Written by Jonathan Sullivan.
Image credit: Chee-Hann Wu.
Taiwan has concluded its eighth direct election of the Republic of China (ROC) President. It was not a pivotal, watershed or critical election, and it was not a contest between war and peace or the embodiment of democracy vs authoritarianism; it was an entirely normal election. The main issues (China, the economy), turnout (71%), the communications environment (parochial and partisan), the candidates’ micro-scandals (this time round requiring knowledge of esoteric building code and land-use regulation), the boisterous rallies and hustings etc were all familiar and part of the routine functioning of Taiwanese democracy. The Central Election Commission once again organised a flawless election. The nuts and bolts of voting stations in temples and school gyms, accurate and fast analogue counts, volunteers getting people lined up and in and out smoothly, etc, are the little things that add up to a big sum.
The results were mixed. Every victor has something to worry about, and every loser can take solace in something. Tsai Ing-wen is the first termed-out president in Taiwan’s democratic history to see her party win the office for a third consecutive term. Unlike Chen Shui-bian or Ma Ying-jeou, Tsai’s late-stage administration is not exhausted, broken or mired in corruption. She is not as popular in Taiwan as in western capitals, but a third presidential term for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is a testament to her management and conduct in government. During the campaign, Lai Ching-te and Ko Wen-je both pledged to follow the ‘Tsai way’ in cross-Strait relations, and even Hou Yu-yih’s position converged to some extent. It is clear, looking at the DPP’s performance in the past handful of elections, that Tsai has been outperforming her party. She has done some heavy lifting for the DPP, and she elevated Lai during a lacklustre campaign. Her magnanimity in pulling for the man who primaried her ahead of her re-election came through in the big viral content of the last week of the campaign, the Luo Jing-ren directed campaign ad “Hit the Road”, in which Tsai gave her formal imprimatur to Lai and created a wave of energising positivity on the DPP side. Bittersweet for Tsai is that she was unable to address the major issue she pledged to fix in 2016 – the economic difficulties faced by young people – which was still the most salient non-China issue in 2024.
Lai is now President-elect, but his sombre victory speech on election night spoke volumes. With 3 million fewer votes than Tsai four years ago, Lai’s 40.05% of the vote is the lowest since Chen’s 39% in 2000. If the DPP was just hoping Lai would break 40%, he delivered, but his failure to reach beyond the DPP base and inability to convince young people are significant. Lai will have to work with a legislature in which his party does not hold a majority. He will be constrained and will need to be conciliatory towards the opposition parties, a note he also hit in his victory speech. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) response to Lai’s victory was muted. Still, the announcement of Nauru’s diplomatic switch soon after was a reminder that managing Taiwan’s external environment will continue to be challenging. Relations between the executive and legislature will require an equally steady hand, and if the Kuomingtang (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) make good on a pre-election pledge to cooperate, it will be a substantial obstacle to Lai’s policy agenda.
Taiwan’s much-maligned pollsters deserve praise. The final polls, unreleased to the public due to the blackout rules in the last ten days of the campaign, were spot on, and going back to the summer, the order and gap between candidates were consistent and accurate. The only downside was underestimating Ko’s support in polls relying on landlines, which young people don’t own or use. That underestimate was not the only surprise about the way Ko’s vote held up. There appears to have been little strategic voting, despite calls to dump Ko dominating the KMT’s campaign messaging in the final week of the campaign. Ko’s presidential vote also translated into the TPP’s party list vote, giving the party eight legislators and a pivotal position in the legislature. This was probably Ko’s ambition all along, and it will keep him at the forefront of Taiwanese politics for the next four years when he will likely have another tilt for the Presidency. A flawed but persuasive candidate, Ko’s staying power was a testament to the dissatisfaction his mainly young supporters felt towards the two main parties. The TPP has areas where it could work with the KMT or DPP, and if it plays its hand well, it will be influential. But whether it can institutionalise and move beyond being a vehicle for Ko is a question. The TPP’s shortcomings were shown in the campaign, when the lack of funds and elected politicians circumscribed the scale of their campaigning, effectively reducing it for chunks of the campaign to the Ko-P TV live-stream. Ko’s mouth will always secure media coverage, but a party can’t rely on that in the long term.
The KMT pledged to change the party in power, and indeed, it has returned to being the biggest party in the legislative yuan. Yet it failed to prevent the DPP from continuing to hold the Presidency. It was obvious from the outset that Lai would struggle to go much beyond 40% of the vote, and thus, the opposition parties had 60% there for the taking. Their failure to agree on a joint ticket was a determinative factor in the outcome. Ko is not an easy bedfellow, but the way KMT Chair Chu Li-lun and former president Ma Ying-jeou handled the negotiations was guileless. And they allowed the cooperation that never happened to dominate the campaign until mid-November. Chu also handled the nomination process poorly. Choosing the limited game Hou was justifiable given the lack of alternatives, but Chu managed to upset both Guo Taiming and Han Kuo-yu in the process. Guo’s flip-flopping on whether or not he would run was unedifying, but Chu’s failure to secure Guo’s support for Hou in the latter stages was another missed opportunity. But the biggest KMT loser was Ma. Seen as the man directing neophyte Hou’s position on China and foreign relations, Ma gave a stunningly ill-advised interview to Deustche-welle in which he said there was no point in Taiwan trying to defend itself against the much stronger PRC and that Taiwan’s status depended on the goodwill of Xi Jinping. Hou spent the final week of the campaign backing away from Ma’s position, killing any chance of a last-minute push. The coup de grace for Ma – a man who has dedicated his life to serving the KMT – was being disinvited from Hou’s election eve rally, a brutal slap in the face.
Lai’s victory was not the result the PRC wanted. It has spent eight years intensifying the pressure on the Tsai government and telling the Chinese people that Taiwanese people hate the DPP secessionists for splitting the Chinese nation. And yet, here we are with another DPP president-elect. But the PRC can find solace in the 60% who voted against Lai, which will be framed as proof of a missing mandate. The composition of the next legislative yuan is a constraint for Lai, and a dramatic escalation does not serve the PRC’s goals at a time of domestic uncertainty. The PRC has many levers to continue pressing Taiwan, but it has limited influence on Taiwanese elections. Big interventions have always backfired, but neither did the “quieter” approach involving balloons, a satellite launch, TikTok misinformation campaigns and the threat of informal economic sanctions appear to have much effect. The PRC will keep up the pressure in advance of Lai’s inauguration address in May, but the strategic calculus is unchanged, at least until the US Presidential election in November.
Jonathan Sullivan is Associate professor in Politics & International Relations at the University of Nottingham. His book (with Lev Nachman) Taiwan: Contested Democracy under Threat (London: Agenda) comes out in November 2023.
This article was published as part of a special issue on ‘What does the 2024 Taiwan election tell us?’.
