Tomorrow is a big day for Taiwan as voters across the island go to the polls to elect the next president. It seems that the KMT is nearly guaranteed of a win, but you never know. We should know by the time most readers wake up on Saturday morning.
Kevin and I were talking about what has happened democratically in Taiwan in our lifetime and I was surprised that the first public election here wasn't held until 1992, or was it '96? I forget. No matter which, it's much more recent than I had thought. Prior to this, the president had been the chairman of the KMT. Lee Teng-Hui was president from '88 to 2000, so he was the first popularly elected president. With the elections came the idea of term limits, so Taiwan has a rule similar to the US - only 2 terms and each term lasts 4 years. So, in March of 2000, just a few months before I arrived in Taiwan, there was a presidential election and the KMT lost power to the DPP as Chen took the presidency. In the 2004 election, he was reelected, but the KMT claims fraud since President Chen took a bullet to the gut the afternoon before the election. According to the opposition, it was set up so he'd win sympathy votes. The past 2 years haven't been so good for the Chen family amid financial scandals, and the island seems to be ready for a change. If the legislative elections that took place in January are any indication to what to expect tomorrow, it'll be a pretty clear victory for the KMT.
I always hear interesting things on the only English radio station here, and the news this evening as I was driving home from school was no exception. In regard to the elections tomorrow, there will be fines of US$1,000-10,000 for using any kind of recording device inside the polling places and they're even higher for taking a ballot outside of the station or of tearing/destroying it inside the station. I'm not really sure why they were telling us this in English as listeners either cannot vote or can also understand Chinese. To me, it seems like they were saying "We know that Taiwan is full of counterfeits, so this is how we're cracking down on it."
Kevin and I were talking about what has happened democratically in Taiwan in our lifetime and I was surprised that the first public election here wasn't held until 1992, or was it '96? I forget. No matter which, it's much more recent than I had thought. Prior to this, the president had been the chairman of the KMT. Lee Teng-Hui was president from '88 to 2000, so he was the first popularly elected president. With the elections came the idea of term limits, so Taiwan has a rule similar to the US - only 2 terms and each term lasts 4 years. So, in March of 2000, just a few months before I arrived in Taiwan, there was a presidential election and the KMT lost power to the DPP as Chen took the presidency. In the 2004 election, he was reelected, but the KMT claims fraud since President Chen took a bullet to the gut the afternoon before the election. According to the opposition, it was set up so he'd win sympathy votes. The past 2 years haven't been so good for the Chen family amid financial scandals, and the island seems to be ready for a change. If the legislative elections that took place in January are any indication to what to expect tomorrow, it'll be a pretty clear victory for the KMT.
I always hear interesting things on the only English radio station here, and the news this evening as I was driving home from school was no exception. In regard to the elections tomorrow, there will be fines of US$1,000-10,000 for using any kind of recording device inside the polling places and they're even higher for taking a ballot outside of the station or of tearing/destroying it inside the station. I'm not really sure why they were telling us this in English as listeners either cannot vote or can also understand Chinese. To me, it seems like they were saying "We know that Taiwan is full of counterfeits, so this is how we're cracking down on it."
Saturday: Now that the election is finished, Keanu found a comfy seat to use while he and Daddy watch the results come in. We just brought his old car seat in from the trunk and now he's using it as a chair.
3 comments:
Very interesting. . . Thanks for the history lesson. Probably a rhetorical question - do people really cheat that much or is there just that much of a distrust?
I couldn't figure out why Ahji couldn't take his cellphone into vote this morning. I'm not too quick. I also just figured out that Ma Ying Jyeo was doing the V/peace sign because he's choice number two (two fingers up) and the other guy was doing a thumbs up because he's choice number 1. duh me!
OK, so the results are in and the KMT (Ma Ying Jyeo) is the victor. The overall percentage is 58-42%, but looking at the county breakdowns is interesting. In about the northern 2/3 of the island, Ma won about 75% of the votes. However in the south, including Hsieh's hometown of Kaohsiung, it was pretty close with Hsieh's DPP winning around 51%. I was surprised it was so close.
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