The Election You Missed

Saturday there was a hugely important election in Taiwan. I bet hardly any of the readers of this blog knew about it. I didn't. But fortunately a perspicacious academic on one of the lists I am on pointed out that (a) the election took place and (b) it was a good test of the alleged "anti-corruption" stance of the KMT. Was there any improvement in corruption? Nope.

What was the election? Sina.com reported on the 14th on it, headlined: 全台283家農會今選出1萬1694位會員代表 (Taiwan's 283 Agricultural Cooperatives today chose 11,694 member representatives). Translation by Google:

Tonight, the Executive Yuan Council of Agriculture said today Taiwan's grass-roots 283 farmers in the re-elections, with statistics, the 5577 elected farm team leader, deputy head, as well as 11,694 members of the representative of the entire electoral process was successfully completed, the voter turnout was an average of 56.13 %

Elections for agriculture, fisheries, and irrigation cooperatives are famous for their alleged corruption, vote-buying, and vote fraud. The Liberty Times had an article on this problems the following day....Googling the first section produced:

The grass-roots election farmers frequently all over the bribery, prosecutors english intensive interviews to date, has admitted more than bribery or bribery, and people have been taken into custody.

Yunlin County Council elections乡农Lun Pui competitive Village Farmers Luo Rui Li on behalf of the candidate's wife, Deng廖秀sumatraensis through others, to 3000 yuan per ticket to 19 people buying tickets yesterday, Rui Deng investigation by the prosecution After hearing the sound remand is granted, the wife was廖秀sumatraensis apprize 50,000 yuan to bail; another police received a report refers to 14 the same amount of farmland will campaign on behalf of candidates for the "collective travel" out of people suspected tied Cai Jiming, Lin Geng recorded, but also questioned the prosecution allowed to charge after the sound.

Apparently the candidate's wife paid 3,000 yuan a pop to buy votes. The importance of this election to the current ruling party was brought out in the Liberty Times piece:

由於農會幹部長期被視為國民黨的地方樁腳
Because the agricultural cooperative officials have long been regarded as KMT cadres...

The regulations governing elections had been revised under the DPP -- yet another DPP initiative you never hear about when you hear people complain that the "DPP never did anything" -- as part of a package of (attempted) reforms. The local agricultural, fisheries, and irrigation cooperatives have long been a key power base of the KMT -- it's not anything that will ever make the international news, but it is a fundamental factor in shaping the island's political economy. I discuss their history, development and importance to the KMT and to its local patronage networks in this long post. A recent case of a KMT legislator having his seat invalidated shows the kind of role these networks play in local politics.

[Taiwan]

Those Choosy Voters in Our Maturing Democracy

Taiwan Journal hosts a commentary by David Lorenzo of Virginia Wesleyan on how the election confirms Taiwan's maturing democracy. This article describes what has become the new, and very widespread CW:

Taiwan's recent presidential election did more than just determine the future of its executive branch and signal future directions in policy with China. It also underlined the growth and maturation of Taiwan's democracy and revealed important aspects of Taiwan's democratic conception.

Why are we so mature? Lorenzo follows the CW in saying that it shows that Taiwanese are willing to throw leaders out when things go wrong:

This formula appears to be the concept of democracy people on Taiwan embrace: democracy is the election of leaders who make policy decisions. Leaders are then held accountable for their policies and re-elected if successful and voted out of office if they fail.

Bracketing discussion of the Presidential level, let's look at the legislature. Are people willing to toss out the leaders? Clearly not -- the KMT and its allied parties have controlled the legislature after each and every election since the KMT set up its government-in-exile here in 1949. At the local level, the town councils are overwhelmingly KMT, and the township and village chiefs, and the neighborhood and precinct captains, are also overwhelmingly KMT. At those separate levels, it has basically been that way since the KMT set up its government in exile here. Are the people willing to "throw the bastards out?" Nope. Lorenzo's claim that Taiwanese hold politicians accountable for their policies is unsupportable -- the KMT and its allies have been a disaster for the last eight years in the legislature, but they were voted in by a comfortable margin in the most recent election.

The apparent exceptions to the unwillingness of the people to remove one party when it is a failure were the two presidential elections of 2000 and 2004, and the county chief elections, where DPP and KMT politicians have traded places several times in several counties.

Looking at the level of presidential elections, was the public really willing to "throw the bastards out?" In 2000 over 60% of the populace voted Blue -- Chen got elected by a minority. The 2004 election represents the only major election in which Greens outpolled Blues -- and if the KMT had run Ma in '04, they probably would have won then too. So stupid was the choice of Lien Chan that I have a good friend who argues the KMT lost the election on purpose so that it could complete a thorough discrediting and crushing of the DPP.

In other words, if you step past the rhetoric and look at history, there is little or no support for the CW claim that the public judges on policies and is willing to toss politicians out when they don't perform on policy....

The opposite of this is also true: successful policy implementation should result in increased prospects for electoral success, but that is not the case here in Taiwan. Consider -- after Chen Shui-bian cleaned up Taipei and made it into the city it is today, he was immediately tossed out for an unproven KMT politician with no experience of local government. Similarly the DPP's Chen Chu won Kaohsiung by a razor thin margin in the last election even though the previous DPP mayor, Frank Hsieh, had done a fantastic job.

And do you agree with this statement below? With Ma soon to be in power?

A maturing democracy does not entail the perfection of the political system, but this election demonstrates that Taiwan's democratic system has a secure and bright future.

I sure hope so....

[Taiwan]

Ma Posters Rul

I was out yesterday in Tainan with John from the Real Taiwan, who had become the latest convert to my quest to ensure that everyone in the world uses a Canon Powershot IS5, taking photos in and around town (my pics up tomorrow). The betel nut girl shots were a bust, but we did get some great shots in one of the soldier's villages in Tainan. The above poster of an incredibly idealized Ma strolling like 007 across a featureless plain was plastered to a pillar in a pavilion in a little park near the village, and lacks only Ursula Andress rising from the waves to complete its mythic power....UPDATE: Compare this classic Mao propaganda poster, pointed to by Frog in a Well.

This gorgeous poster of Ma sitting with representatives from every community in which the KMT committed murder hangs off of the intersection of Wu Chuan and Wu Chuan W Rd in Taichung. It is a wonderful work, the eye follows the faces up and they end up in the last row with iconic images of Taiwan -- aborigines -- and Ma standing with them, a little off to one side. The only jarring note is their ridiculous fist pumping motions, which look forced and awkward. The party affiliation is completely absent, and the poster is entirely Taiwan centered. You need only to compare this poster to the utterly conventional stuff out there on Hsieh and Su....

...like this one. Hope the DPP can get out there with some really powerful visual messages in the coming weeks.

[Taiwan]

Taiwan: How the numbers are faked

I know some of you out there still have trouble accepting in your gut that so many of those nice numbers you see on Taiwan's TV screens are totally bogus. Numbers are, after all, an American cultural habit. But ESWN found a nifty little nugget that is a primer in number creation by fiat:

During the recent DPP primary election, Huang Chao-hui was supposed to be runnng against Pasuya Yao in the fourth district of Kaohsiung. But negotiations resulted Yao going to the first district instead. Therefore, there was no election in the fourth district.

On primary election night, SETTV began to report on the vote counts across Taiwan. For the fourth district in Kaohsiung, it showed that Pasuya Yao had 3,002 votes compared to Huang Chao-hui's 3,001 votes (see sub-title in the above screen capture). The entire district has only 5,000 or so voters.

Huang Chao-hui said that he called SETTV as soon as he found out. On his first call, he called the general telephone line and was routed around without getting any result. On his second call, he was told that the matter will be dealt with. But it took a long time before the numbers were removed. Still, his supporters were agitated. "It was really weird."

According to SETTV, it used 30 student workers to cover the voting centers across Taiwan, so that these votes could not have been fabricated in the studio. [Note: Fabricated vote tallies are known to have occurred in previous elections because the news television channels need to show higher totals in order to gain viewers who think that they are getting more up-to-date numbers that are closer to the final result.] Thus, this case was an unintentional mistake.

SETTV tends to be pro-Green. Pasuya Yao, the former GIO head, is so awesome, he can win in two districts at once. We need more legislators like that....

[Taiwan] [media] [DPP]