New Municipalities, Old Problems

The new municipalities of Xinbei, Tainan, Taichung, and Kaohsiung opened for business today. One result was that the DPP made historic gains at the city council level, continuing its long-term erosion of the KMT presence in the local governments:

While local council heads are traditionally dominated by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and independent councilors, the DPP, for the first time in the nation’s history, took both the speaker and deputy speaker seats in the Greater Tainan City Council, as well as deputy speaker seats in the Taipei and Greater Kaohsiung City Councils.

In Taipei City, the incumbent council speaker, Wu Bi-chu (吳碧珠), of the KMT garnered 37 seats and won the seat for the fourth time, while her DPP rival Lee Chien-chang (李建昌) received 32 votes.

However, DPP councilor Chou Po-ya (周柏雅) defeated the incumbent deputy speaker Chen Chin-hsiang (陳錦祥) by a 30 to 29 margin, making him the first-ever DPP member to serve as deputy speaker of Taipei City Council.

The KMT accounted for 30 of all 62 Taipei City councilors, while the DPP garnered 23 seats. There are eight councilors from the New Party, People First Party and Taiwan Solidarity Union, and one independent councilor.

In the Taipei City election the KMT managed to unite behind the speaker, but split for the vice-speaker election due to the usual situation of one politician angry at another, with the PFP switching sides. Still, it is progress.

The North-South income disparity is an important driver of the island's political life; but now emerging is a growing clash between the municipalities and the counties. For years, Taipei and Kaohsiung commanded a huge chunk of government money, with Taipei getting the majority of that. To counter Taipei's massive advantages, Taipei County, Kaohsiung and its county, Taichung and its county, and Tainan and its county have decided to upgrade to municipality status in order to collect a bigger share of the government budget. Recall that in the ROC system a municipality is the equivalent of a province whereas the counties remain merely local administrations. The result is a worsening of urban-rural budget issues:

Under the tabled revision, special municipalities are set to receive 61 percent of the money set aside by the central government, up from 43 percent and roughly proportionate with their share of the population.

At the same time, the share given to counties and local municipalities will fall to 24 percent from 39 percent — a figure that the county commissioners yesterday want revised upward.

I wondered how income would be redistributed, but as in every country, income flows uphill toward power. The law revisions call for the municipalities to get 61 percent of the central government flows -- they used to get only 43%. I wondered how the government would handle the problem of all the new municipalities demanding new budget resources, and the answer is now clear: pillage the counties even more. The article referenced above opened with this emotional appeal:

Yunlin County is close to being unable to pay either the salaries or year-end bonuses of its 100,000 public servants.

Yilan County has a NT$20 billion (US$669.8 million) debt that is not getting any smaller, while Chiayi County has a NT$3 billion deficit it has not been able to reduce this year.

A month ago a commentary in the Taipei Times discussed the problems of local government debt in Taiwan, both public and "hidden":

Last year’s audit report revealed that up until the end of last year, of the eight cities and counties that will make up the soon-to-be five special municipalities, Taipei City had the highest overall debt at NT$291.7 billion (US$9.58 billion), followed by Kaohsiung City at NT$211.2 billion, Taipei County at NT$108.1 billion, Taichung County at NT$48.5 billion, Tainan County at NT$44.5 billion, Tainan City at NT$31.7 billion and Kaohsiung County at NT$26.4 billion. Taichung City had the lowest overall debt at NT$7.2 billion.

Similarly:

A 2009 audit report showed that until the end of last year, the eight cities and counties set to make up the country's five new special municipalities from Dec. 25 had an estimated US$26.6 billion of debt, including money owed to national health and labor insurance programs, pension contributions and interest payments for the pension schemes of civil servants.

Taipei City had the highest overall debt at about US$9.9 billion, followed by Kaohsiung City with around US$6.6 billion.

Taichung City had the lowest overall debt of US$238 million, but its debt is set to increase to US$1.7 billion after its merges with Taichung County to form a special municipality on Dec. 25.

Debt is a critical driver of political history. The new municipalities now redefine the north-south tension as a municipal-county tension. The Taipei Times had a page on the sputtering nonsense of the mayors of Taipei city, Taipei County, Taichung, and Tainan:

• New Cities, New Paths: Hau Lung-bin pledges to rejuvenate capital city
• New Cities, New Paths: Eric Chu heralds a ‘new age’ for ‘new’ city
• New Cities, New Paths: Greater Taichung’s Hu calls for ‘new concepts’
• New Cities, New Paths: Lai pledges to restore Tainan’s glory
  

Amidst all these backward-looking, faintly fascist calls for restorations of glory and new ages, one headline caught my eye:

New Cities, New Paths: Chen focuses on rural-urban gap

Stressing that all resources would be equally shared and fairly distributed, she also pledged to reduce the gap between rural and urban areas.

“I pledge there will absolutely be no such thing as a so-called ‘one city, two systems,’” she said.

She also called on the central government to attach more importance to the voices of southern Taiwanese.

Awesome.
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=UPDATED= Yang Chiu-hsing formally announces independent run

First the report:

Kaohsiung County Commissioner Yang Chiu-hsing (楊秋興) yesterday officially launched his election bid for Greater Kaohsiung mayor, a move seen as intensifying a crisis for the opposition party in a traditionally pan-green stronghold.

Yang, who lost the DPP primary in May, launched his campaign in the afternoon, telling dozens of supporters it was his “duty and responsibility” to run as an independent for mayor of Greater Kaohsiung.

“It's a very conflicting decision for me, but now I have made up my mind,” he said. “I have been asked to run by business and religious figures as well as local residents who worry about Kaohsiung falling behind. I have the determination and will to make this city a better place.”

However, more than a dozen consultants with the Kaohsiung County Government resigned in protest upon learning of Yang's decision, saying they could no longer support Yang because the move went against Taiwan's interests and popular opinion.

“How could Yang make this decision when Taiwan's fate hangs in this critical [election],” said a statement signed by 13 senior consultants, including doctors, pro-­independence stalwarts, a university president, a company chief executive and a radio producer.

All 13 had been handpicked by Yang, sources close to the county government said. Representatives from the group said more resignations were expected.

I like to ride a century ride -- 100 miles -- each month. I was so peeved at missing a century on Saturday that today I rode from my house up to Toufen and back, 161 kms, 100 miles. This gave me a lot of time to think. I also had a chance to gather up opinions from lots of smart people who share a common love of The Beautiful Island.

First, Yang quits, and what do we see? Mass resignations among his advisers and appointees. Withdrawals of support from DPP councilpersons in Kaohsiung. Ok, so Yang is a problem -- but his entry into the race was met with a strong show of DPP strength and unity. That should also put the fear of god into others who might want to split from the DPP and go it independent.

What are his chances of winning? He has to know: apparently nil. A DPP poll released the other day said:

If the elections were held tomorrow, the DPP’s candidate, Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊), would win by a more than 30 percent margin, with 53.7 percent of the vote, against 22.6 percent for Yang and 15.3 percent for Huang.

While Huang would still obtain 38.5 percent support among pan-blue voters, Yang would follow a close second with 34.2 percent. On the other hand, the county commissioner would only receive 15.8 percent support from pan-green voters against 80.8 percent for Chen.

An Apple Daily poll similarly said:

A survey conducted on Aug. 3 by the Apple Daily showed that 43.7 percent of the respondents in Kaohsiung favored Chen, while only 27.18 percent and 20.49 percent would vote for Yang and Huang respectively.

Another way to look at it is to note that in the last election held at the county-wide level, the DPP challenger, Yang himself, won by over 100,000 votes. On the other hand, in the last legislative election in 2008, the KMT outpolled the DPP by 30,000 votes. However, much of the anger at Chen Shui-bian that helped fuel the 2008 results has dissipated over time (thank you, once again, KMT, for locking him up so that Tsai could repair the DPP). Also, it was a different level of election. It is hard to see anything other than Chen Chu cruising to victory at this point. Back in May a UDN survey ranked her as the most popular mayor in Taiwan.

What else is going on? Yang has gathered support from Master Hsing Yun, the head of Fuoguangshan, a former KMT central standing committee member, solidly pro-China. In addition, bosses of several large firms have allegedly backed him, including Terry Gou, head of Foxconn/Hon Hai, according to TV reports. These firms expect to benefit from ECFA. It is interesting that when Yang left the DPP, he immediately began spewing KMT talking points, as reported by the KMT news organ:

During yesterday’s interview, Yang said, “The rising of Mainland China’s economy is a fact. Therefore, it is necessary for the DPP to readjust itself. The DPP should not think that both sides of the Strait are still in a state of hostilities and object to everything for the sake of objection merely based on twenty-odd-year-old ideas.”

Yang went on to say, “Small countries should have wisdom in dealing with large countries. On the other hand, big countries have to treat small countries with kindheartedness and magnanimity.” Yang was paraphrasing words by ancient Chinese philosopher Mencius, which are often quoted by President Ma Ying-jeou during talks on cross-Strait relations.

......

Yang stressed yesterday that the disputes between the Blue and the Green camps had lasted for several decades and they had greatly impacted Taiwan’s economy. Yang said that he had gradually changed his mind and chosen “a third way” in the hopes that the Blue and the Green camps could reduce conflicts so that society would become more peaceful and progressive.

During the interview, Yang said that he supported the recently-signed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) on the condition the number of agricultural products imported from the Mainland not be increased and the government ban the entry of Mainland laborers. Yang said, “If we don’t support the ECFA, Taiwan will become an islolated island.”

In another strange echo of KMT ideals, he also said he wanted to make Kaohsiung like Singapore. It was all uttered as if Yang had never signed off on an anti-ECFA pledge or made other expressions of support for DPP policies. Yang's credibility with DPP voters is probably blown.

Possibilities? Perhaps the KMT will quietly make its own candidate, who can't win, disappear or drop out, thinking maybe it can get its voters to vote for Yang and gather in some DPP votes and maybe get enough votes to lever Yang into office instead of Chen Chu. Or maybe Yang is thinking he can drop out at the last minute and then ask everyone to vote for Chen Chu in exchange for some political deal for a position in the 2012 DPP administration.

Or maybe Yang is just fed up and frustrated and wants to lash out at the DPP. Rumblings of serious trouble have been ongoing. Back in March, for example, Yang accused Chen Chu of using White Terror spying and harassment tactics against him. Stories have circulated that Yang says he ran as independent because he was angry at Chen Chu's treatment of him. Yet there are many ways to respond to such problems, and he chose the worst one of all.

It's a sad loss. Yang had been a competent county magistrate who had garnered much praise from the public. He might have continued as a competent manager in some other post.

Meanwhile in Tainan Mayor Hsu continues to criticize the DPP's primary process, which has caused much division within party ranks, and talk of an independent run.

UPDATE: Yang himself had this to say about his own experience, which he dates to Morakot, according to an interview yesterday on CTI, the pro-KMT cable network:

Kaohsiung County Executive Yang Chiu-hsing yesterday granted an interview to CTI television and stated that he hoped that the DPP would reexamine the course it had chosen to chart, adding he had already done so. Yang said that he had previously been a member of the deep-Green camp, but added, “I would like to apologize to society for my past views and words.”

Moreover, Yang said that, previously, he had indeed suspected that President Ma Ying-jeou would “betray Taiwan,” however, after having spent time with President Ma in the aftermath of the 8/8 Flood, he changed his mind. Consequently, Yang said that he would be remiss if he didn’t publicly correct his past doubts about Ma’s intentions as well as apologize to society for his past ideology.

Yang added that “Taiwan is already an independent country and no one could really sell out Taiwan.”

The Liberty Times also ran a piece today saying that Yang Chiu-hsing had changed during Morakot. During the discussions about what to do with the aborigines Yang had adopted the KMT line that they should not be returned to their villages. Big money was backing that position, as I wrote at the time.

Read that second paragraph there. The entire island watched Ma Ying-jeou say one stupid, ignorant, obnoxious, arrogant, rude thing after another, and watched the indifference of himself and his government in handling that disaster. Yet Yang Chui-hsing became a Ma convert after that.

Yeah right. It had nothing to do with the Big Money that was backing the KMT's position.

But note the date -- this was August of 2009 -- at that time Yang basically says he changed his commitment. Folks, that was a year ago. This whole thing about Chen Chu being arrogant is looking like simply another way to attack and split the DPP, like his adoption of KMT talking points and repudiation of everything he has ever stood for. The litany of complaints dating back months are smoke and mirrors. It also sheds a new light on Chen Chu's behavior if indeed she was arrogant and dismissive of Yang. Perhaps she knew something other observers missed.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Yang formally announced his bid on AUGUST NINTH. One year to the date that he woke up to the blasted landscape of Morakot and KMT leaders crawling all over his turf. What a coincidence that he announced his flip-flop on the anniversary of the day he developed his man-crush on Ma Ying-jeou.

He's been planning this for a year.

What a vicious little joke the date of the announcement is.
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Daily Links:

• US and Vietnam conduct joint military exercises
• A scholar argues in WSJ that the correct historical analogy for US-China is UK-Germany prior to WWI.
• Buy land, save the dolphins.
  

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Chen Chu Speaks Out in China

Chen Chu, the DPP mayor of Kaohsiung, is back from her trip to China:

Chen, who left for Beijing on Thursday, returned on Sunday night to cheers from her supporters and protests from a number of pro-independence groups unhappy with her trip.

The Taiwan Southern Society, the Taiwan Society Hakka and a number of pro-independence groups that had urged Chen to scrap the trip said they would boycott her re-election bid next year.

A member of “the 908 Taiwan Nation Movement” sitting in seats reserved for the public at the city council yesterday held up two posters criticizing Chen for not stating that Taiwan and China are two different countries while on her trip.

While meeting Beijing Mayor Guo Jinlong (郭金龍) last week, Chen mentioned “President Ma Ying-jeou [馬英九] of the central government,” winning praise from politicians across party lines in Taiwan.

Asked yesterday about the resulting criticism from some civic groups, Chen said she respected their opinions because Taiwan is a democracy.

However, she added, “I’m also an independence activist. I was imprisoned for my pro-­independence beliefs,” she said.

She declined to comment on whether she thought that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) should adjust any of its China policies or that DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) should visit China.

Independent Kaohsiung City Councilor Hsu Kun-yuan (許崑源) praised Chen at yesterday’s council session and urged her to be “brave” in the face of criticism.

Meanwhile, Chen called on Department of Health Minister Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川), who ­yesterday said Chen’s trip to China was a “betrayal” of Taiwan, to retract his comment.

“[Yeh’s attendance at] the Wolrd Health Assembly and my [trip to China] are completely different. He should shoulder responsibility for what happened there. I hope he will take back his criticism of me,” Chen said on the sidelines of the session.

In China Chen Chu had referred to President Ma as "President Ma", something that KMT politicians negotiating with the CCP in the PRC had conspicuously avoided. The criticism of Chen Chu by her own side is just plain bizarre, and shows how stupid and self-defeating the Greens can be. Note also that Minister Yeh, off in Geneva for the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an observer, criticized Chen Chu for "betraying" Taiwan. Irony meters must be exploding all over the island.

Chen Chu's visit also shows that contrary to the claims of the international media, the DPP is quite willing to engage with China -- as we all knew anyway -- they just not are willing to engage at the expense of Taiwan's sovereignty, as Ma and the KMT are. Good politics and good political theatre on Chen Chu's part.

United Daily News (UDN), the reliably pro-KMT paper, offered a poll on the visit, which noted overwhelming support for Chen Chu. Polls here aren't exactly reliable.

Chen Chu is an old independence activist, one of the Kaohsiung 8 arrested after the international human rights day protest in Dec of 1979.
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Daily Links

• Chinese investor buys chunk of Cavs.
• Yesterday we saw China in Central Asia, today it is China in SE Asia.
• Ma save us! Export orders fall 20% in April, down 27.3% for first quarter year on year.
• CNBC economist argues Taiwan is too dependent on China and stimulus is insufficient (video).

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Infrastructure Dust Up

A struggle is brewing over regional disparities in funding. It seems that the central government's plan is to "stress the north, ignore the south" and southern politicians are deeply unhappy:

Kaohsiung County Magistrate Yang Chiu-hsing proposed the central government Tuesday take into account each administrative district's size, in addition to their population, when allocating state funds for boosting the local economy and for promoting public construction projects.

Yang made the suggestion in a meeting with ranking county government officials after the Cabinet-level Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) made public last Friday a list of the amounts that local governments will receive under the plan.

Taipei County in northern Taiwan would receive the largest share -- NT$9.6 billion from the NT$114.4 billion (US$3.74 billion) in state funds earmarked by the Executive Yuan.

Neighboring Taipei City would receive the second highest sum of NT$6.6 billion, followed by Taoyuan County at NT$4.9 billion. Taipei City and Taoyuan County are also in northern Taiwan.

The total spending plan is worth US$3.7 billion. It is true that the areas receiving the most cash for public infrastructure projects are all in the north, and all predominantly Blue. Indeed, as A-gu reported the other day, the KMT briefed its own magistrates on the spending plans as early as February, while giving DPP magistrates just a day to prepare theirs once the KMT got into office. The message to the DPP-held areas is clear. But at the same time the idea of spending where the people are is not exactly irrational. Another issue is that Taoyuan is the fastest growing county in Taiwan, and high growth naturally demands more infrastructure spending.

One of Taiwan's most pervasive problems is the disparity between the north and the south, something that the DPP tried to ameliorate. Consequently, Kaohsiung mayor Chen Chu has organized a group of six southern city and county heads to oppose the new plan. Meanwhile out in the Penghu, officials are demanding that the government keep its promises to put in casinos.

Public infrastructure spending is supposed to save the construction firms with whom the local officials have such intimate political patronage connections. These are limping along, and many in the local construction industry are now asking whether China can save Taiwan's real estate industry. As the Taipei Times reports, construction isn't doing so well.

A report by Collier International, however, said office building prices had gone up so much that it had scared away potential buyers or office tenants, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported yesterday.

The report forecast the vacancy rate for the office building market could climb back up to exceed 10 percent this year from last year’s 9.47 percent, the paper said.

Meanwhile, statistics released by the central bank yesterday showed that the property market may be showing signs of weakening. Loans for construction have dropped for a second straight month to NT$1.018 trillion last month, tallies showed.

The NT$8.65 billion, or 0.85 percent, decline in such loans — which mostly include loans to construction companies for housing projects and land development — in April from the previous month has accelerated from a monthly decline of NT$2.07 billion, or 0.21 percent, in March, data showed.

The central bank’s latest data also indicated weakening consumer loans in other categories. Car loans presented a continual decline since July 2006 and fell to NT$81.21 billion last month, a reduction of NT$1.8 billion, or 2.18 percent, from the previous month.

The Taiwan Institution for Economic Research (TIER) observed that any boost from infrastructure spending this year will probably be offset by rising gas and food prices. Perhaps effects will show up next year, it said.

[Taiwan]

Chen Chu Wins One

Chen Chu, the DPP Mayor of Kaohsiung, won her appeal that reversed a lower court decision to annul her victory in the Kaohsiung mayoral race.

An appeals court ruled Friday that the mayor of Taiwan's second largest city was elected fairly, reversing the decision of a lower court.

The island's High Court said the razor thin electoral victory of Chen Chu in the southern city of Kaohsiung last December was legal and that she could remain in office.

In June the Kaohsiung District Court had accepted the claim of opponent Huang Jun-ying of the main opposition Nationalists that the vote was unfair, nullifying her election by 1,114 ballots out of a some 770,000 cast.

Huang had said Chen's camp smeared him by presenting a video on the eve of the poll allegedly showing vote-buying on a bus returning from his campaign rally.

In its ruling Friday, the High Court said Chen's allegations of vote-buying by Huang did not force voters to necessarily choose her candidacy over his.

"Chen Chu's campaign did not compel voters to vote one way or the other," the court said.

The ruling is not subject to appeal.

At issue were allegations of vote buying that surface at the end of the campaign. The weird logic of the ruling is in response to the lower court's ruling that originally annulled the election:

Judges decided that accusations Chen's camp made regarding Huang Jun-ying (黃俊英), her main rival, on the eve of the election and on the polling day influenced election results.

The district court stressed in a news release that "Chen's polling-day action of making public a videotape showing a man giving money to passengers on a bus and urging them to vote for Huang could be regarded as a surprise attack against Huang and thus to have made the election unfair."

The night before the election Chen Chu and her supporters found evidence that the Huang camp had been vote buying, and trumpeted it to the public. That was after the election activities were supposed to have ceased, a seeming violation of the law.

According to a report in the Taipei Times about the vote buying, KMT candidate Huang's campaign manager admits that he knew the vote buyer:

Su Wan-chi (蘇萬基), the executive of the KMT mayoral candidate's campaign team, admitted that he had asked Yang, who also is from Yunlin, to help mobilize support for the candidate. But did Su give Yang NT$60,000 to pay voters to participate in rallies? If he did not, then where did the money come from?

Lin Ping-feng (林平峰), chairman of the Yunlin Association, admitted to prosecutors that the association rented 10 buses for Huang's election-eve rally, but that it did not include the two buses Yang had organized for his mobilization activities.

However, Su, a former chairman of the Yunlin Association, had already admitted that he asked Yang to mobilize supporters for the rally, and he managed to fax the map of the rally to Ku.

I have a long revew of vote buying as a tactic in Taiwan here.

Did the vote buying influence the election? The numbers, as always, won't support Blue fantasies. As I wrote last year:

In Kaohsiung, things were just the opposite. Chen's Chu's narrow victory was almost certainly the result of the presence of the TSU candidate in the race. In 2002 the DPP won by more than 25,000 votes, 386K to 361K, with no TSU or PFP candidates in the race. In 2006, the KMT gained 17K votes to reach 378K -- which looks like a huge gain, until one recalls that in 1998 they spiked at 383K. Had they merely reached their 1998 levels, they would have won handily.

By the same contrast, the DPP's 379K vote was 7K less than 2002. One might argue that the DPP has fallen off, except that the TSU took 6,500 votes. The 2006 TSU + DPP total is 386K votes. Hence Chen Chu's showing was not some statistical blip or DPP failure, but the direct result of the TSU poaching votes from the DPP; the number of Green voters remains unchanged. Meanwhile the KMT gain was due entirely to success in getting out the vote, not to voters switching parties due to some putative disappointment with the DPP. Again, had the KMT reached its 1998 level, it would have won.

In other words, had the TSU not had a candidate in the race, Chen Chu would have won by a much bigger margin. The Courts split evenly on this one, but how screwed up is the justice system? News came out today that Lee Tai-an, sentence to 18 years for helping to murder his brother's Vietnamese wife, got out on bail prior to his third and final hearing. Lee became a folk hero in the Blue community after getting busted for setting up an elaborate conspiracy to murder for insurance money, a conspiracy that also threatened the innocent passengers on the trains Lee helped derail. Claiming persecution by the justice system, he actually showed up as a celebrity at Shih Ming-te's anti-Chen protest in Taipei, one of the many excesses that helped discredit those faux protests. Lee got out on -- hold your breath -- NT$20,000 in bail. That's not an error, folks. $NT20K. I think we're looking at yet another in the long line of KMT-loving criminals who will mysteriously manage to vanish from Taiwan and turn up in China...

[Taiwan] [DPP] [KMT] [Kaohsiung] [Chen Chu]

Kaohsiung Mayoral Election Invalidated

A local court has invalidated the Kaohsiung Mayoral election.

Judges decided that accusations Chen's camp made regarding Huang Jun-ying (黃俊英), her main rival, on the eve of the election and on the polling day influenced election results.

The district court stressed in a news release that "Chen's polling-day action of making public a videotape showing a man giving money to passengers on a bus and urging them to vote for Huang could be regarded as a surprise attack against Huang and thus to have made the election unfair."

"We deem that Chen Chu's election as mayor should be invalidated because she, as well as her camp, held a press conference to make vote-buying accusations against her rival on polling day, when laws stipulate that no election-related campaigns can be held at that time in the race," the district court said in the statement.

Huang was not given enough time nor a fair opportunity to defend himself, judges insisted, further emphasizing that the evidence Chen's camp cited for its accusations against Huang was not strong enough.

However, the district court overruled a second lawsuit by Huang alleging irregularities caused by suspected vote-rigging.

The court decided that although the Central Election Commission, responsible for holding the vote, failed to stop Chen from making vote-buying allegations against Huang and did not fine Chen for making the allegations on polling day, this was not sufficient grounds for ruling that the entire election was held improperly.

I've heard that the press conference on the vote buying was held past 10:00 PM, which is against the rules, although Chen Chu is apparently arguing that the law allows presentation of vote buying information at "any time." How the judges knew the accusations affected the results is a mystery, because there is no good polling on the matter, but I suspect that we'll see some pro-Blue polls cited.

According to a report in the Taipei Times about the vote buying, KMT candidate Huang's campaign manager admits that he knew the vote buyer:

Su Wan-chi (蘇萬基), the executive of the KMT mayoral candidate's campaign team, admitted that he had asked Yang, who also is from Yunlin, to help mobilize support for the candidate. But did Su give Yang NT$60,000 to pay voters to participate in rallies? If he did not, then where did the money come from?

Lin Ping-feng (林平峰), chairman of the Yunlin Association, admitted to prosecutors that the association rented 10 buses for Huang's election-eve rally, but that it did not include the two buses Yang had organized for his mobilization activities.

However, Su, a former chairman of the Yunlin Association, had already admitted that he asked Yang to mobilize supporters for the rally, and he managed to fax the map of the rally to Ku.

I'm also curious to see whether a court will now invalidate the Taipei county elections, since there were similar last minute accusations of vote buying against DPP candidate Lo in 2005. I have a long revew of vote buying as a tactic in Taiwan here.

[Taiwan] [DPP] [KMT] [PFP] [TSU] [Kaohsiung] [elections]