Taiwan’s upcoming election has received considerable attention regarding its potential impact on cross-strait and U.S.-China relations. Following eight years under the Kuomintang (KMT) party and improvements in cross-strait relations, Taiwan is poised to elect its first female president in Tsai Ing-Wen, a Western educated leader of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), who unsuccessfully ran for the office in 2012. Whereas female presidents and prime ministers are not unusual in Asia, Tsai appears to be the first not related by blood or marriage to a former leader or democracy movement star. Nor does Tsai have extensive experience in elected offices, despite Taiwan leading the region for the percentage of women elected to the legislature and lower level offices.
Stark differences emerge between this election and Tsai’s previous presidential bid in 2012. The DPP has gradually rebounded from the backlash associated with their last successful presidential candidate, Chen Shui-Bian (president from 2000 to 2008), who was sentenced to 19 years in prison on bribery charges. Tsai faces incumbent KMT President Ma Ying-Jeou, who is focusing his campaign largely on the growing stability in cross-strait relations.
However, since 2013, several factors have aided Tsai and her party more broadly. From a backlash to the handling of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) and a stagnating economy, to a growing sense of Taiwanese (rather than Chinese) political identity, the DPP benefited greatly from anti-KMT sentiment in local elections in November of 2014. More importantly, under Tsai, the DPP has attempted to shed its image as an opposition party focused more on Taiwanese independence than maintaining the status quo, positioning itself increasingly as a moderate alternative to the KMT. This has been crucial. Whereas previous declines in KMT support did not easily translate to boosts in DPP support, the party’s ability to separate itself from common perceptions that it did not represent the status quo on Taiwan’s political future has positioned the party as a viable alternative to a broader section of the Taiwanese population. Furthermore, shifting the electoral debate away from cross-strait relations, where the KMT was often viewed as stronger, to domestic issues, is intended to neutralize the cross-strait issue and cast the election as a backlash to Ma’s overemphasis on China.
Tsai has also benefited greatly from intraparty conflict within the KMT, culminating with the party replacing its original candidate, Hung Hsiu-Chu, with Eric Chu in October. Chu, who beat Tsai in the 2010 Taipei County (Xinbei) mayoral election, was widely viewed as the KMT’s most formidable potential candidate due to his image as a technocrat. However, his late entry, after vowing to remain as mayor, did little for the party’s polling numbers. Both before Hung’s replacement and after, Tsai has maintained a nearly 20-point lead in polls—unprecedented for the DPP in presidential elections.
Furthermore, and largely ignored by outsiders, the DPP may win a majority in the legislature, besting their strongest performance of 39.6 percent of seats in 2004. This would present, for the first time, a unified DPP government, which could potentially enact suggested social policy programs and electoral reforms. For example, the DPP has already indicated its support for legalizing same-sex marriage, which would make Taiwan the first country in the region to do so. And the party favors reforms that would promote greater proportionality in the allocation of legislative seats. Assuming that internal struggles within the DPP do not emerge under a unified government, the party has the opportunity to make significant domestic reforms—unrelated to cross-strait relations—that can increase the party’s viability beyond 2016.
