legislative elections likely to reinforce President Chen Shui-bian's drive to bestow more trappings of independence on this self-governing island....I note the "Democracy School" candidate lost in Kaohsiung. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, given the quasi-feudal support for relatives of corrupt city government candidates last summer. Meanwhile, I'm guessing that Chen will refuse to concede defeat. Shades of "Feel-Good Politics".
The opposition Nationalist Party and its allies in the People First Party, which have acted as a parliamentary brake on Chen's presidency for the past four years, are likely to lose their majority in the 225-member Legislative Yuan, according to analysts and polling data.
In campaign speeches across Taiwan's 29 electoral districts, Chen's independence policies have been the main issue, eclipsing such local concerns as schools and roads.
In Pro-Independence Parties Defeated in Taiwan, Keith Bradsher writes,
The loss by candidates of President Chen's Democratic Progressive Party, usually known as the D.P.P., is especially significant because it comes after nearly two decades of steadily rising support for pro-independence candidates...Feel good?
D.P.P. officials said that campaign decisions had hurt them. Chang Chun-hsing, the D.P.P.'s secretary general, said that the party had nominated too many candidates in many multi-seat districts, so that the candidates took votes from each other and few received enough to win seats. Lee Ying-yuan, one of the two deputy secretaries general, said that D.P.P. supporters in these districts had voted in such large numbers for their party's weaker candidates that the strong candidates failed to receive enough votes.
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