I Forgot to Mention

KMT wins in a landslide

The opposition Kuomintang crushed the ruling Democratic Progressive Party in...local elections, taking 14 of the 23 county and city government seats up for grabs.

The KMT's sweeping victory was doubly sweet as it managed to wrest back rule in Taipei and Ilan counties, both of which have been governed by the DPP for 16 and 24 years respectively. The KMT and DPP currently rule nine cities and counties each. The ruling party was able to retain only six.

and

Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian's popularity has fallen to its lowest level since he took office five years ago, a newspaper poll showed, two days after his party suffered a crushing defeat in local elections.

The United Daily News reported on Monday that the survey of 1,044 people showed Chen's approval rating falling to 21 percent, down from 25 percent in the paper's last poll in October.

Kathrin Hille claims

Disgruntled voters punished the ruling party for a series of corruption scandals and a lack of achievements by Mr Chen’s government.

...the [DPP] government has not implemented structural reforms, for instance, to develop new service-oriented industries to replace manufacturing, which has moved to lower-cost China.

The administration has also failed to introduce a significant relaxation of restrictions on economic ties with the mainland, Taiwan’s largest export market and most important outward direct investment destination.

This has hampered economic growth.

Corruption included this (dated Nov 21, 2005):

Taiwan prosecutors Monday charged 11 people, including a former confidant of Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian, with corruption over the import of Thai workers to build a subway system in the southern city of Kaohsiung.

"Chen Che-nan accepted entertainments and other illicit profits from Hua Yung Yi Company to travel to Thailand and South Korea when he served as the deputy secretary-general of the Pesidential Office" two years ago, said Chung Chung-hsiao, prosecutor of Kaohsiung District Prosecutors' Office.

He said the former confidant allegedly violated Paragraph 5 of the anti-corruption law by favoring and profiting from the local hiring agency Hua Pan and its subsidiary Hua Yung Yi.

Chen, who had been a deputy secretary-general to President Chen (no relation), stepped down last month as a presidential adviser after he was investigated over whether he had used his influence to help Hua Pan and Hua Yung Yi to win the contract for importing the Thai workers from the Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Company.

The scandal was sparked by a riot in August by several hundred Thai workers protesting against inhumane treatment and exploitation.

Chung said ten other people, including a former vice chairman of the Kaohsiung Rapid Transit System Company, a former head of the Kaohsiung Labour Affairs Bureau, were also charged with either corruption or breach of trust.

So it's Chen Che-nan (陳哲男) and former Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp (KRTC) vice chairman Chen Min-hsien (陳敏賢). And also

former Kaoshiung city mayor and incumbent Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) has been another target for both opposition and ruling party members. Hsieh, a possible strong contender in the 2008 presidential election, is the planner and builder of the Kaoshiung MRT....

Kaoshiung prosecutors said they have divided the complicated KRTC scandal into 11 cases because of its gravity. A situation of this magnitude has never occur-red in Taiwanese judicial history, they said.

There were also dirty tricks before the election.

DPP Legislator Lin Chin-hsin (林進興) took part in a press conference in Taichung on Tuesday with 12 other doctors to disclose what they said were Taichung Mayor Jason Hu's (胡志強) medical records.

Based on his professional knowledge, Lin told reporters that Hu's medical record indicated that the mayor's chances of having a stroke were 30 times that of a healthy person.

With the endorsement of the other doctors, Lin then suggested that Hu should withdraw from Saturday's elections.

Lin told reporters that he was revealing Hu's medical history in an effort to persuade voters not to "be fooled" into re-electing the mayor.

The DPP legislator did not say how he obtained Hu's medical record, nor was he able to certify that the record was actually Hu's file.

...

DPP caucus whip William Lai (賴清德), who is also a doctor, said yesterday that Lin's actions were apparently "inappropriate and unnecessary," although Hu's health condition has been clearly evident since his stroke...

Lin defended his actions yesterday, saying that he didn't think he had violated the law or done anything that would warrant him losing his license since Hu is not his patient.

He urged the public to focus more on who had leaked the report in the first place than on the doctors' actions...

Eleven of the doctors who joined Lin at Tuesday's press conference filed lawsuits against the Apple Daily yesterday for defamation and public insult, requesting NT$100 million (US$2.98 million) in compensation. They were angered by the daily calling their act "audacious."

And more about Lin Chin-hsin:

Two hospitals owned by two Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers were suspected of colluding with a family to evade health insurance payments from the National Health Insurance Bureau, prompting the DPP to say that they would mete out the most severe punishment if the allegation proved to be true...

Tainan Prosecutor's Office speculated that Wen and his family might have bought insurance policies from insurance companies and then colluded with five hospitals in Tainan and Kaohsiung to issue fake hospitalization documents in order to fraudulently claim health insurance payments.

Among the hospitals are the Lin Jin-hsing Hospital in Kaohsiung City, owned by DPP Legislator Peter Lin (林進興), and Yeong-Jen Hospital in Kaohsiung City, where DPP Legislator Chiu Yeong-Jen (邱永仁) serves as the director...

Lin yesterday denied that he is involved in the fraud, claiming that he himself is also a victim.

"The management of the hospital is tough and patients are admitted to the hospital only when it is necessary," he said. "I must be terribly unlucky to have those people coming to my hospital."

Update
I noticed a number of reports speak of the KMT as favoring reunification, like Reunification party gains in elections

Taiwan's opposition Nationalist Party won an overwhelming victory in islandwide municipal elections Saturday, putting it in position to push its agenda of reunification with China....

Surely that's an oversimplification.