Taiwan Post Election Comments

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Monday November 29, by Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

The elections are past; the pundits are trying to find an appropriate spin for each side. On the one hand, the status quo remained with the blue party holding three mayor-ships and the green two. But the overall popular vote revealed a large increase for the green camp. The cities of Kaohsiung and Tainan showed a strong increase in DPP suppoort; it resembled a tide rolling northward from the south where the people have a greater sense of what it means to be Taiwanese. It reached Taichung where the people finally seem to realize that you need more than jokes to rule a city and root out corruption.

One surprise was Jason Hu, who had been thought to be a shoo-in, but he barely won. A shame for the citizens of Taichung; it appears that they will be no closer to breaking the ties between the police and gangsters and will have to endure his flippant patronizing style for four more years.

Another mystery is the gangland execution style shooting of Sean Lien, the son of Lien Chan. This is also another case that points to links between the KMT and gangsters. Who didn't pay off who? Why were the gangsters ticked off at their normal ally? These are questions that people are asking. Was it a case of mistaken identity or was Sean Lien the real target. Ironically while the blue camp was shouting for justice and multiple investigations when an assassination on Chen Shui-bian was done in 2004, they don't seem to really want the truth to come out on this one.

On another positive note for the DPP, they gained enough city council seats to be just about dead even with the KMT. Roll Tide Roll!