Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Shen heats up Taipei Mayor Race

SETTV Poll

News out: DPP says it will support the independent Ko in Taipei race, agrees with TSU not to field candidate. Quid pro quo:
As part of the reciprocal commitment, Ko agreed to hold talks with DPP candidates in other mayoral and commissioner elections to formulate “shared platforms” and, if he wins the election, take the same positions as DPP mayors and commissioners on major policy discussions.

Ko also pledged to campaign for DPP candidates in the Taipei councilor elections.
On Twitter @Formosanation sent around this SETTV poll. The poll has Ko Wen-je, the independent candidate supported by the DPP, in a comfortable lead over Sean Lien, the KMT princeling. Interestingly, former DPPer Shen Fu-hsiung entered the race the other day and polls at 13%. @Formosanation pointed out that his father, a die-hard KMTer, had switched from Lien to Shen and mentioned that many others appeared to be doing the same -- Shen is not taking votes from the pan-Greens, but from Sean Lien, yet more evidence of how widely detested the candidate of the 1% is in his own party. But with the KMT voters split, conditions are slowly emerging for a major upset -- if Ko's handlers can keep things under control.

Even more impressive is that 19% for the rightmost candidate in the graphic, the DPP's Pasuya Yao. If you add that to the 41% that Ko has collected, you get an overwhelming pan-Green victory. Argh!! I don't believe that will hold up, and polls like this are incredibly unreliable -- voters might utter protests to pollsters, but on election day they come home to the Party. But it makes a nice little fantasy.

It's amazing to think that if Ko actually wins and doesn't screw up too badly as mayor, he'd have to be taken seriously as an independent candidate for President at some point...
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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Though the image is Yao's face, that 19.7% is for 未表態 or Undecided, right?

Unknown said...

Looking at the graphic, it's interesting to see that there's a foreigner named Wei Biao-tai in the race, ha ha. He definitely has my vote!

TaiwanJunkie said...

Ko's goal is ultimately the presidency. He has said many a times changing Taiwan has to start with Taipei. as well as there is a need to change the overall civic culture of Taiwan. These are not aspirations of a mayor, these are aspirations of a president.

The idea of course is people ultimately choses the government, whether the country is democratic or not. An extremely poor country with a small elite that exploit its people will gravitate toward communism or a fundamentalist regime. A country that have an uneducated population will squander a chance at democracy even if it was handed to them on a silver platter.

Ultimately Taiwanese are wholely responsible for keep KMT around. We deserve what we get, and we should not get upset. We essentially identify with Blue or Green as if they are the Yankees vs the Red Sox. No matter how bad your team is, you still try to defend it as a loyal unwavering fan.

Ko is somebody that understands this, and that's why he wanted to move outside of the traditional party alignment. He is hoping to change that team-allegiance aspect of Taiwanese politic. Only by breaking that stalemate can we harness the obvious national concensus that 80% of the country already support.

Anonymous said...

That last category is actually undecided voters.

How humiliating would it be if Lien really loses? Between the financial and partisan advantage he holds, this race should be a cake walk.

les said...

I'm waiting to hear Sean Lien start bad-mouthing the man who sewed his face back together.