Election Round Up: Tsai announcing candidacy... 11 months from Armageddon

Party time at the old Da-an Train Station outside Houli.

Couple of key events for the election next year. First, Tsai Ing-wen, DPP Chairman, declared her candidacy for presidency. She announced on Facebook that she'd enter the primary to become the DPP's presidential candidate, but since she's the party leader and the shoo-in candidate. Way cool moment: announced on Facebook, where she has well over a million followers. Several DPPers were complaining about the party's primary, which has an entry fee to discourage random fools from standing in the primary that they don't like. Everyone is speculating now who the Veep will be...

Meanwhile another Tsai, Alex Tsai, who ran the laughably inept campaign for the KMT's Sean Lien in Taipei Mayor that culminated in an epic spanking, survived a recall election by the Appendectomy Project. I considered this project a waste of time and resources by self-promoters, which is why I've more or less ignored it (ADDED: Frozen Garlic with good thoughts on the recall vote).

The big news is that the Presidential and legislative elections are going to be held on the same day in Jan of 2016:

CEC members decided during a meeting today that the 14th presidential and the 9th legislative elections [next year] shall be held on the same day,” CEC Chairman Liu I-chou (劉義周) told a press conference after the meeting. “As for the date of the elections, the CEC will call a meeting with local election commissions to decide.”

Everyone agrees that (1) this favors the DPP and (2) the effect won't be very great. But high turnout in the Presidential election should help put a few DPP candidates in office. This means that the election is now eleven months away. Most people expect the DPP to win the Presidency. If the election were held tomorrow Tsai Ing-wen would win, but the DPP has eleven months to exercise its powerful capacity for screwing up. So I'll be on tenterhooks until she is actually sworn in.

With the KMT's numerous problems, I'm very curious to see how many local faction politicians break with the party and attempt to run as independents over the next few months, since that will be a strong signal of the KMT's direction. How new Chairman Eric Chu handles the local factions will be vital... and yet here is Ma Ying-jeou...

MaWangMess: You'd think that with 11 months remaining til election time Ma Ying-jeou, current KMT Chairman Eric Chu, and the KMT would be burying the hatchet and trying to move forward, but current President of the ROC and former KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou is still pursuing his vendetta against the Speaker of the Legislature Wang Jin-pyng (MaWangMess, MaWangMess). The other day he demanded to know why new Chairman Eric Chu isn't out there pushing a third appeal by the KMT in the case. Wang is a major leader of the Taiwanese KMT and the vendetta against him caused a split in the KMT. Chu cannot file another appeal without re-opening those wounds. A smart, pragmatic politician would let the issue die, but only someone totally clueless would describe an inflexible ideologue like Ma as "pragmatic." Hilariously, Ma accused Chu of playing Tai Chi.

Not so comically, Ma has to keep the focus on Wang. Not only will it be a terrible loss of face for Ma if Wang retains his party honors, but more importantly, if the media focus is on Wang, it will take the media focus off Ma himself: the information he used against Wang appears to have been obtained illegally and Ma may have to face charges of abuse of power. The prosecutor who fed Ma the information that he used against Wang has already been found guilty of a crime in that case...
_________________
Daily Links:

• China Policy Institute blog: Who Needs Whom in the China-Taiwan Relationship?
• Taiwan's growing problem of nuclear waste
• Lovely pics from Josh Ellis of Taipei's mansions
• The latest Taiwan insider from Thinking Taiwan.
• Forbes published a column noting that the Independence is strong here. One hardly knows how to react... happiness that a mainstream media organ published a piece delineating the strong pro-independence sentiment, or hilarity that it's years behind events? 
• Jail terms for massive abuse of national park property. Absolutely outrageous, but when voters don't punish people...

_______________________
[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!