I took a breather from blogging for a short while to focus on academic and other work such as judging in the Taiwan Blog Awards etc. There's been lots of great analysis of the election results so I don't have much to contribute to the analysis other than the following observations:
- DPP leader Tsai is finally getting some just and long deserved good coverage for her leadership style which even members of the KMt have remarked has been rational and calm. I found her post-election comments to be a breath of fresh air and the hallmark of a person taking a professional and considered approach to molding the DPP into a more modern and voter friendly organisation. I believe the polls showing her public image to better than Ma's indicative of the success of her steady and focused methodology which contrasts sharply with the soapboxing and inciting rhetoric of previous leaders.
- If anyone wasn't sure which of the two main political parties in Taiwan are 'violent' and 'fraudulent' I think this election has closed the debate. It seems that of the vote buying the KMT was responsible for 80 - 90% of all incidents investigated by the IMJB, CEC and police - this despite the fact that they went into the elections as incumbents in 14 of 17 county commissioner races. Oh, I don't think any losing DPP candidate walked into any KMT offices with a loaded gun and shot anyone (do not forget that the KMT Yunlin loser responsible for this violence was personally supported by Ma himself).
- That the DPP regained Yilan to take their tally of county commissioners to 4 is encouraging but too much shouldn't be read into it. The local election tallies (as MT and others cover show more interesting patterns and may indicate improved overall health for the DPP)
- Let's just say this again. The Hualien result is NOT a defeat for the KMT but a defeat for a certain faction within the KMT (Namely the Ma clique) and a victory for a hard blue local faction. I also believe that the winner has already done jail time and is also currently under investigation for other alleged crimes.
- Taichung Mayor Hu has backed down on protest zones but claims he never supported them. Be interesting still to see what the police do in the next few weeks when Chen Yunlin arrives for 'Sell-Out Talks 2.0' (There have actually been multiple party to party sell out talks ongoing since 2006 which are so numerous that they, like the works of Mozart (K numbers), need their own separate counting system. I believe we may be on SO.341 by now)
- ECFA support falling and almost zero if done under the condition of the CCP's one china principle. Watch these polls magically slowly increase after the Chen-Chiang Talks, peaking over the required 60% by the time China wants ECFA to be signed.
