POLITICS-TAIWAN: President’s Win by Small Margin Polarises Nation

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Antoaneta Bezlova

TAIPEI, Mar 20 2004 (IPS) - An eleventh-hour attempt to influence the outcome of Taiwan’s presidential elections through an assassination try on the incumbent president Chen Shui-bian produced a contested vote that has sharply polarised the public in this island of 23 million people.

Chen, the leader of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) who survived Friday’s assassination attempt, barely won re-election by 30,000 votes on Saturday. His opponent Lien Chan, leader of the Nationalist party, or Kuomintang, said the vote was invalid and demanded a recount.

”It was not a fair election,” declared Lien Chan at a rally of cheering supporters. ”We declare the vote invalid and demand that the ballot boxes are sealed immediately.”

”The elections are a victory of democracy,” President Chen said in a brief statement after the results were announced. ”They show that Taiwanese people are masters of their country. Let us welcome a new era of peace between the Taiwan Straits.”

”It was a victory of the ballot over the bullet,” declared a victorious Annette Lu, Chen Shui-bian’s running mate for vice president. ”How could the election be unfair? There always has to be loser.”

Despite these words however, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is not celebrating too triumphantly. The electorate failed to pass two referendum questions because less than 50 percent of the electorate voted – it appeared that Kuomintang supporters boycotted the proceedings.

Under a new and highly contested referendum law passed last year, the Taiwanese were asked if they should beef up their military defences if China refused to dismantle the 496 missiles pointed at the island and if the government should engage in peaceful talks with the mainland.

Over six million said yes, but the results show that Chen could not be confident of getting through a referendum on the island’s independence, an act which Beijing has threatened would trigger an invasion.

Taiwan has been ruled separately from mainland China since the 1949 Civil War, when the Kuomintang party forces were defeated by the guerrilla communist army of Mao Zedong and fled to the island. Beijing regards Taiwan as a wayward province and has threatened to use force if the island declares independence.

Chinese leaders insist that before cross-straits discussions or formal cooperation begins, Taiwan must agree that it is an inseparable part of China. The Taiwanese president has refused to accept Beijing’s precondition.

Among a population traditionally deeply ambivalent toward mainland China, Saturday’s vote has been regarded as crucial for Taiwan’s future policy toward Beijing.

Chen Shui-bian has tried to convince Taiwanese people that a decision on sovereignty lies with them. Under the campaign slogan ‘Believe in Taiwan, support the reform’, he has urged supporters to believe in Taiwanese national identity and follow through with democratic reforms.

”I have come all the way from Los Angeles to vote for him,” said David Chen, waving the DPP’s green flag. ”There is one China, one Taiwan. I have voted for Taiwan.”

The Kuomintang favours a less confrontational approach toward Beijing, calling on business community to use China’s large market opportunities to invigorate Taiwan’s laggardly economy. With the DPP’s victory by such a tiny margin, the KMT-led alliance has been busy stirring up doubts about the mysterious shooting on Friday afternoon which they say swayed undecided voters to deliver a sympathy vote for President Chen.

In what was the first attempt in Taiwan’s history to assassinate a serving president, both President Chen and Vice President Annette Lu were wounded when they were driving in an open-roof jeep through a campaign rally in Tainan Friday.

Chen was grazed in the stomach and Lu hit in the right knee, but both injuries were pronounced as not life-threatening.

”This shooting in Tainan is what changed the count,” gushed Guo Hu-feng, who works at Yidie department store in downtown Taipei. ”I think he (Chen) masterminded it because he feared he was too close to lose the vote. I don’t t trust him; he is capable of doing it at the last moment before the voting so that there is no time for investigation.”

Prior to the shooting, the opposition alliance, composed of the Kuomintang and the People First Party, were predicting a victory by roughly 450,000 votes.

In the actual count, President Chen won 50.12 percent of the vote or 6,470,839 votes. Lien Chan won 49.88 percent with 6,443,022 votes – but there were 337,297 invalid ballots so a recount could easily change the result.

The Central Election Commission confirmed the results and said that the opposition must file a complaint and the matter would be handled according to the regulations.

The police had opened an investigation into the assassination incident, but have offered no hints clues about the identity of the assailants or their motives. The public has been left pondering allegations that President Chen and his running mate may have deliberately engineered the shooting to help their campaign.

Those responsible appear to have used a homemade guns and bullets similar to those used by Taiwanese gangsters or triads who are heavily involved in local politics. Observers are ruling out any act of state terrorism from China but the KMT is angry that President Chen used the incident to activate a national security mechanism, a way of stoking fear of the mainland.

The opposition alliance spokesman Yu Tzu-chiang criticised the government’s handing of the crisis, calling it a ”total mess”. He said Chen’s DPP used the incident to whip up support for Chen by addressing crowds gathered in front of the hospital and elsewhere.

Chen’s supporters however, were indignant about rife speculations of a masterminded assault to influence the elections. Yu Yili, a travel agent, said: ”How dare these people say it was a stunt? Was the assault on his wife a stunt?” Chen’s wife, Wu Shu-chen, has been in a wheelchair since 1985 when she was hit by a truck and run over three times, an incident blamed on the KMT. All the leading members of the DPP have spent years in jail at a time when it was a crime to organise opposition to the KMT during its 40-year dictatorship.

It is still unclear if the KMT can successful challenge the election results but it has the potential to damage the still immature workings of Taiwan’s young democracy.

Taiwanese political commentators compared the situation to the last U.S. presidential election, when the results were so close that they were marred by a dispute over spoiled ballots which had to be referred to the Supreme Court.