​One of the more interesting developments in Taiwan's 2016 general election was the rise of so-called  "Third Force" parties--completely new entrants into the political system, rather than break-aways from the KMT or the DPP.  While some of the media commentary got a bit carried away about the significance of these new parties, the founding of one, the New Power Party (NPP), did pose a serious threat to the DPP's chances of winning a majority in the legislature. As an offshoot of the Sunflower Movement, the NPP positioned its message in a way calculated to appeal to pan-green voters, and it recruited high-profile candidates to run in district races, not just the party list. These district candidates had the potential to split the pan-green vote in what everyone expected would be a very anti-KMT year, and in a worst-case scenario for their side, help the KMT hold on to their legislative majority. 

In the end, a pan-green split didn't happen. A key reason is that the DPP headed off the threat early: the party formed a kind of pre-electoral coalition by yielding 11 districts to the NPP and other non-DPP candidates in exchange for their support not to run against DPP candidates elsewhere. And the districts that the DPP yielded were, with one exception, far past the critical 57th seat needed to deliver a legislative majority. It turned out to be a good deal for the DPP, which won 68 seats overall. It also, more surprisingly, turned out well for the NPP, which won all three district seats and five overall and became the third largest party in the LY. 

The NPP Surprise
My own expectation going into the election was that the NPP candidates would perform worse, on average, than a generic DPP challenger. (In fact, if you read that linked post closely, I was even more specific: 2-4 points worse, on average.) The rationale was pretty simple: Freddy Lim, Hung Tzu-yung, and Huang Kuo-chang were already household names, but their close association with the Sunflower Movement, and the acerbic rhetoric of Huang, especially, suggested they would be fairly polarizing as candidates. And in the traditionally blue-leaning districts of Taipei 5 (Lim) and New Taipei 12 (Huang), I thought they would turn off more voters than they attracted with that approach. 

So what actually happened? In the graph above, I've plotted the vote share of each DPP and DPP-endorsed district candidate against Tsai Ing-wen's share of the presidential vote in the same district. DPP incumbents are represented by solid dots; challengers (i.e. non-incumbents) by hollow ones; NPP candidates by hollow squares, and other non-DPP candidates by hollow triangles. (A hearty thank you to Frozen Garlic for doing the yeoman's work of sorting the presidential race vote totals by LY district and making these data publicly available.)

Thoughts on this below the break. 

Apologies for the lack of posts after the election--I'm still catching up with my day job after an exciting and fruitful trip to Taiwan. If you're jonesing for some election reactions, plenty of other people have already weighed in on what happened and what the results mean. (Here's one long list.) We'll no doubt be analyzing and talking about the results of these elections for the next several years, but I'll try to write some reflections on the actual results over the next few weeks, in addition to some thoughts on developments in the Legislative Yuan and appointments to President-elect Tsai's incoming government.

In the interim, here are a couple links. I had the opportunity to give some initial thoughts at an event in Taipei the day after the elections; here is the video from that roundtable, sponsored by Ketagalan Media.

We also held an event at Stanford last Tuesday at which Larry Diamond and I had a bit more time to reflect on the elections, the health of Taiwan's democracy, and what's likely to come next; slides and video from that seminar can be found at the CDDRL ​event page. 

I'll repeat my main take-away from both those events: this was a (mostly) encouraging demonstration of  Taiwan's democratic process, whatever your ideological or partisan predilections might be.

President-elect Tsai Ing-wen will have a large DPP majority in the legislature, and the prospects for reform of aspects of the legislative process are that much better for it. The impressive victories of the New Power Party in its district races are also an encouraging sign: the NPP grew out of the student-led protests of 2014, and their success indicates that much of that opposition to the Ma administration has been channeled into the electoral and now the legislative process rather than remaining in the streets. And, this bears repeating, Taiwan's elections management remains a model of efficiency, accuracy, and probity--I never fail to be impressed at how smoothly the voting, counting, and reporting of the results takes place. I wish elections in the United States were even half as well run.    

On the less positive side, turnout was way down--66.2%, below even the 2014 local elections. And there's that pesky matter of a nearly four-month gap between the seating of the new legislature on February 1 and the inauguration of the new president on May 20, which is creating a real constitutional challenge. That badly needs to be fixed in this next term, perhaps by Tsai offering to shorten her own term as a one-off concession in a larger package of reforms. 

Finally, now that the new Legislative Yuan has been formally sworn in, it's important to note that Tsai has just secured the election of a new DPP speaker, Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全), who's a close personal ally--an outcome that required the incumbent DPP caucus leader, Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘), to relinquish his claim on the position. In that vote, no DPP members defected from the party, and the NPP caucus also voted in Su's favor. That's an auspicious start to what is going to be a fascinating period in legislative politics in Taiwan.   

One of the major advantages the DPP has had over the KMT in this election cycle is its cooperative relationship with the smaller upstart parties on its flanks: the Taiwan Solidarity Union (台聯), the Social Democratic Party-Green Party (社會民主黨 － 台灣綠黨) alliance, and above all the New Power Party (時代力量).

The TSU is the DPP's traditional ally, and the two worked fairly closely together in 2012 to coordinate nominations: the TSU avoided running candidates against DPP nominees in the districts, and the DPP encouraged deep green voters to consider casting a party list vote for the TSU. That strategy paid off for the pan-green camp when the TSU won 8.96% of the party list vote, which returned it to the LY after a four-year absence. And in the districts, the DPP candidates won all but four constituencies that Tsai Ing-wen carried (and six that she didn't.)

Unfortunately for the TSU, it isn't looking so hot in the polls right now and probably won't win the five percent of the party list vote it needs to retain seats in the legislature. It's likely to be replaced by the NPP, which was founded only about a year ago and is running several high-profile candidates in district races. This could have been a major problem for the DPP: a new pan-green party with a strong pro-independence slant and brash leadership, targeting the same youth vote that the DPP is counting on to help it win a majority in the LY, and without a past history of coordination in elections.   

Instead, the DPP leadership recognized this threat early on and worked out a cooperation agreement: the party would yield several districts to the NPP (only three, as it turned out), and the NPP would only campaign in those districts to avoid splitting the pan-green vote elsewhere. The arrangement has worked well enough that Tsai Ing-wen is even showing up to appear with some of the NPP candidates.

The DPP has pursued a similar approach to cooperation with candidates from other groupings, yielding several other seats to small parties. Via Solidarity.tw, here's the list of small-party candidates the DPP has endorsed:  

• Taipei 3: Billy Pan (潘建志), Independent
• Taipei 4: Huang Shan-shan (黃珊珊), People First Party
• Taipei 5: Freddy Lim (林昶佐), New Power Party
• Taipei 6: Fan Yun (范雲), SDP-Green alliance
• Taipei 7: Yang Shih-chiu (楊實秋), Independent
• ​Taipei 8: Lee Ching-yuan (李慶元), Independent
• New Taipei 9: Lee Hsing-chang (李幸長), Independent
• New Taipei 12: Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), New Power Party
• Taoyuan 6: Chao Cheng-yu (趙正宇), Independent
• Taichung 3: Hung Tzu-yung (洪慈庸), New Power Party
• Taichung 5: Liu Kuo-lung (劉國隆), TSU

11 seats seems like a lot to yield, right? Isn't this a costly signal that the DPP is willing to weaken its shot at a majority in order to defeat the KMT and forge a broad coalition in the LY? Well, let's step back and see just how crucial these seats are to a DPP majority. Here's the list of district seats ranked by how large Tsai Ing-wen's lead or deficit was in 2012, with the yielded districts marked in yellow (all of them are currently held by the KMT): 

Remember that the DPP needs about 41 district seats to win a single-party majority in the LY. Notice where almost all the yielded seats lie? Below #41. Waaaaay below, in fact. If some of these seats go to third-party candidates, the DPP is already going to have a majority all by itself.

I noted this in a previous post, but it's worth reiterating here: this is smart politics by the DPP. They're ceding races that are not very competitive to third parties and independents in exchange for non-compete agreements in the critical races in the 25-45 range. (In fact, this ranking probably understates just how difficult some of these seats are: Taipei is more reliably blue than the rest of the island, so the swing toward Tsai there is likely to be lower than elsewhere.)

How Much is One District Worth?
One "yellow" district is high up the list, though, and it's a very interesting one: Taichung 3 is ranked #30. What's going on there? The NPP has nominated Hung Tzu-yung, and the DPP is not running a candidate. Like the NPP candidates elsewhere, Hung is already a well-known figure in Taiwan: she is the sister of Hung Chung-chiu (洪仲丘), a military conscript who died in July 2013 as the result of harsh punishment by his superiors. (The incident triggered large protests, the resignation of the Minister of National Defense, and the rapid passage of a far-reaching reform of the military justice system.)

​By generic partisan lean, Taichung 3 is by far the most competitive district of any the DPP has yielded; a swing of just 2.33% toward Tsai would turn it green. If Hung can run anywhere close to Tsai's 2016 total in this district, she should win it easily. So, of the NPP candidates running for district seats, it's Hung, not Huang Kuo-chang (in New Taipei 12) or Freddy Lim (in Taipei 5), who is best positioned to win in 2016.

It's likely that the threat of NPP candidacies in critical races elsewhere gave them the bargaining power to get the DPP to yield Taichung 3, and as a result they're well-positioned to win at least one district seat, in addition to whatever they get from the party list. From the DPP's perspective, this is a good trade as well: they cede one competitive district for a full non-compete agreement everywhere else. And with one prominent exception, the deal has held. ​

The Curious Case of Hsinchu City
​That exception is Hsinchu City, where the DPP Legislative Yuan party caucus leader Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) is running against both the KMT nominee Cheng Cheng-chien (鄭正鈐), a city council member, and the NPP's Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智). Ker is widely disliked by the NPP's core supporters, and Chiu has refused to withdraw from the race, creating the possibility of a serious pan-green split in the vote. With a big enough swing (11-12%) toward Tsai, this seat could be competitive, but it's likely to be close even then, so Chiu's candidacy could well be fatal to Ker's chances.

What's especially intriguing about this race is the possibility of an ulterior motive for the NPP, and possibly some elements of the DPP, too. As party caucus leader, Ker is in line to be the next speaker of the LY if he wins re-election, and he's likely to try to block any meaningful reforms of the cross-party negotiation mechanism (政黨協商) that has given the current speaker, Wang Jin-pyng, tremendous influence over the legislative process. That in turn could prevent Tsai Ing-wen from getting much of her policy agenda through the LY. I have no idea if Chiu's campaign is a deliberate strategy to take out Ker, but from the NPP's point of view, preventing Ker from winning re-election might just be worth splitting the pan-green vote and throwing the seat to the KMT. Some of that animosity clearly comes from Ker's long history of deal-making in the LY and his role as the key DPP member in closed-door cross-party negotiations. For instance, it's easy to forget that he was actually at the center of the special influence case that caused the open rift between Wang Jin-pyng and Ma Ying-jeou--it was a case against Ker that Wang leaned on prosecutors not to appeal.

By the way, isn't it curious that Ker is fighting for re-election in such a tough place for the DPP? (Tsai lost here in 2012 by 21 points.) How did this happen to the party caucus chair?! Ker was previously a party-list legislator for two terms, so by DPP party rules he has to run in a district now. Unlike the KMT, which flagrantly violated its own rules to allow Wang Jin-pyng to run for a third time as a list legislator, the DPP didn't yield on this point. But why Hsinchu? Well, that's where Ker is originally from; he won several consecutive races there under the old SNTV system. Now that the electoral system has changed to single-member plurality, though, he's got a much tougher challenge.

I'm a bit surprised that Ker didn't manage to parachute into an easier district somewhere else. The fact that he's not only running in Hsinchu but also facing a challenge from the NPP suggests some significant opposition to him from elsewhere within his own party. But if he overcomes the odds and wins his race, he is going to owe Tsai Ing-wen very little, and he may have a political axe to grind with her or some other elements of the DPP for putting him in such a tough position. If he ends up as LY speaker, he could quite plausibly be a DPP version of Wang Jin-pyng during the Ma era: a powerful and independent-minded leader whose first priority is protecting his own interests, not those of the president or his party. Given how badly that turned out for Ma Ying-jeou and the KMT, this race could have an outsized impact on relations between Tsai and the DPP caucus in the LY after the election. It's worth watching closely. 

UPDATE 2015.12.30: Shortly after I wrote this, allegations of vote-buying were levied against the local KMT branch and its candidate, Cheng Cheng-chien, for holding a free public banquet in a local night market for KMT members and local residents. Pretty brazen, and stupid.  

Trouble in the Family (煮豆燃萁). The "Ma-Wang showdown" erupted into a full-blown political scandal in the past week.  On Sunday, news broke that phone surveillance by the Special Investigative Division (SID) of the Supreme Prosecutor's Office had been much more extensive than previously revealed.  The SID's wiretaps included the phones of other legislators besides Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘), the DPP's party whip and the office's initial target.  It also apparently included the legislature's central switchboard.  Even prominent KMT officials including New Taipei City mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫), Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-pin (郝龍斌), and Taoyuan County John Wu (吳志揚) are inveighing against the SID.   

The revelation has put the methods used to approve wiretapping under intense scrutiny, particularly by people who are well-placed to do something about it: the legislators themselves.  Suddenly, individual privacy and especially proper judicial procedure are hot issues for discussion.  

Besieged on All Sides (四面楚歌) At the center of the political storm is the SID's chief prosecutor Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘).  Huang is under fire for two separate issues: potentially overstepping the SID's authority to wiretap, and improper collusion with President Ma in the announcement of the case against Wang Jin-pyng.  

The Ministry of Justice has formed a task force to investigate the wiretapping allegations, and Huang has already been grilled by members of the legislature over the matter.  Then there is the separate leak investigation opened by the Taipei District Prosecutor's Office, for which Huang, President Ma, Ma's former deputy secretary Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強), and Premier Jiang have all been summoned to give testimony.  To complicate matters further, the Control Yuan (檢察院), an odd and increasingly irrelevant relic of the original Sun Yat-sen-designed constitution that is supposed to monitor government behavior, has joined the fun and broadened its own investigation of "improper influence" by officials.  In case you've lost count, that's three separate investigations that Huang Shih-ming has triggered in the past week.

With all the controversy swirling around him, Huang has not fallen on his sword to protect Ma Ying-jeou, either, doing little to dispel the impression that his actions were closely coordinated with the Presidential Office and seeming more interested in saving his own skin.  Ma’s popularity ratings are pretty dismal, registering at 15% in some recent polls.  Ma, for his part, has denied trying to influence the Special Investigative Division's actions.  

Schadenfreude (幸災樂禍).  All the scrutiny of Huang this week has crowded out the original story of possible malfeasance by Wang Jin-pyng and Ker Chien-ming.  Remarkably, Ker is now suing both Huang and Ma.  For his part, Wang won another court decision on Monday, sustaining his injunction against being expelled from the KMT.  The next step: the Supreme Court. If the injunction is upheld there, then Wang will probably survive through the end of the term, as his lawsuit against the KMT may not be settled for years.  

Lest the DPP gain too much enjoyment out of the KMT's turmoil, allegations of malfeasance against one of their own were also in the news this week.  Tsai Ying-wen (蔡英文), the DPP's former party chairwoman and 2012 presidential candidate, was censured by the Control Yuan for "dereliction of duty" in her role as vice premier in 2007.  Tsai approved government investments in a biotech start-up that totaled about US $1.4 billion, then later worked as a spokesperson for the company after leaving government.  Notably, the same Special Investigative Division that's now in hot water over wiretapping closed its investigation into the Tsai case in August 2012, finding no evidence of wrongdoing.  That fact plus the timing of the announcement suggests a possible political motive behind the decision, and may generate more interest in the DPP in abolishing the Control Yuan.   

All eyes on me.  The biggest news of the week continues to be the attempted expulsion of Taiwan's speaker of the Legislative Yuan, Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) of the KMT, by his own party.  Wang's fate depends on the outcome of a case now before the Taiwan High Court.  On September 12 the KMT's Central Evaluation and Discipline Commission (黨中央考紀會) revoked his party membership, apparently on orders from President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), for alleged "influence peddling" in a court case against DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘).  Because Wang holds an at-large seat on the KMT's party list, rather than a district seat, the party action against him was expected to force him out of the legislature.  But Wang's legal team managed to win a temporary court injunction against his removal on September 13.  

For the time being, Wang retains his seat but has been barred from participating in KMT party activities.  The attempt to expel him has laid bare some serious tensions within the ruling KMT, forcing a delay in the party's planned 19th party conference that was scheduled to begin on September 29.  

Gang of Five.  A weekly policy meeting of five key figures in the KMT--president Ma, vice president Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺), KMT secretary-general Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權), and legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng--will resume, with KMT legislative caucus whip Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) taking Wang's place.  The move is one of several that appear intended to further isolate Wang and his allies in the party and consolidate president Ma's authority, as well as improve cooperation between the executive and legislative branches. Of particular note is that Wang's allies potentially include the former vice president and presidential candidate Lien Chan (連戰) and his son, Sean Lien (連勝文).

Can you hear me now?  Another bit of fallout from the "Ma axes Wang" (馬鍘王) affair with far-reaching political implications is the revelation that the Special Investigative Division (特別偵查組) of the Supreme Prosecutor's Office (最高法院檢察署) had been wiretapping the phones of DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming.  The evidence of Wang's intervention in the legal case against Ker was reported directly to President Ma, who highlighted it in his press conference announcing the party's disciplinary actions. That raises potentially troubling questions about prosecutorial independence, the appropriate use of secret wire-tapping and domestic spying, and the balance of power in legislative-executive relations.

On Wednesday, Ker got his chance to fire back when Prosecutor-General Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘) testified before the legislature.  At least one KMT legislator is not so happy about the existence of wiretapping, either.  One thing to keep an eye on is whether more KMT legislators eventually push back publicly against the executive branch, or whether the shared interest in protecting the institutional authority of the legislature is trumped by party loyalty.

Give it a shot [奪力一搏].  The elections for the five special municipalities (直轄市) -- Taipei, New Taipei, Kaohsiung, Taichung, and Tainan -- aren't until late 2014, but there's already jockeying for the KMT and DPP party nominations.  The highest-profile race is in Taipei, where the incumbent mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) of the KMT is term-limited.  This week Wellington Koo (顧立雄), a lawyer and former advisor to the presidents Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian, confirmed he was interested in running on the DPP ticket.  Another name mentioned frequently is Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), a physician and chief of the intensive care unit at National Taiwan University Hospital in Taipei--though Ko is not currently a member of the DPP.  Former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) is also reportedly interested.  

For the KMT, Sean Lien (連勝文) is polling well but has not stated publicly whether he will will run.  The Taipei Times reports that four others have already declared their intention to seek the KMT nomination: legislators Alex Tsai (蔡正元) and Ting Shou-chung (丁守中), and Taipei City councilors Yang Shi-chiu (楊實秋) and Chin Hui-chu (秦慧珠).

In the New Taipei City race, former DPP premier Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃) announced this week that he would seek the party's nomination.  He joins former legislator Chuang Suo-hang (莊碩漢) as announced candidates.  New Taipei DPP party chief Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) is also openly considering a bid.  The incumbent mayor, Eric Chu (朱立倫) of the KMT, is eligible to run again but may run for Taipei mayor instead.  He is also frequently mentioned as a leading candidate for the 2016 presidential election.