US embassy cable - 04TAIPEI3956

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TAIPEI 003956 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE PASS AIT/W 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/13/2014 
TAGS: PGOV, TW 
SUBJECT: PAN-GREEN SURPRISE DEFEAT:  TECHNICAL FACTORS KEY? 
 
REF: A. TAIPEI 03898 
 
     B. TAIPEI 03940 
 
Classified By: AIT Acting Director David J. Keegan, Reason 1.4 (B/D) 
 
1. (C) Summary: An overly aggressive nomination strategy 
combined with a lower than expected voter turnout to deal the 
Pan-Green camp a surprising defeat in the December 11 
Legislative Yuan (LY) election.  Although the Pan-Green 
alliance of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the 
Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) made some small gains over its 
2001 LY performance, the Pan-Green fell 12 seats short of 
winning a controlling majority in the LY and performed well 
below its own expectations and most analysts' estimates 
(Reftels).  Throughout the election, national-level issues, 
such as constitutional revision and name rectification, 
dominated the media but remained secondary to the 
electorate's focus on local-level personality and party 
machine-driven politics.  End Summary. 
 
The Pan-Green's Achilles Heel:  Aggressive Nominations 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
2. (C) Riding high after its presidential election victory 
earlier this year, the Pan-Green camp implemented an 
aggressive nomination strategy in the hope of translating 
earlier support for President Chen Shui-bian into a majority 
of seats in the LY.  The DPP increased its nominations from 
83 in 2001 to 92 this year, many of the jumps coming in 
traditional Pan-Blue strongholds in northern and central 
Taiwan where the DPP thought it had cultivated enough votes 
to pick up more seats.  The DPP, moreover, appears to have 
continued to support all its candidates in the final two 
weeks without resorting to the tactic of "dropping stragglers 
to protect the rest" (ch'i-pao) as it had done in previous 
elections.  The TSU's nomination of 30 candidates, although a 
drop from 40 in 2001, proved too optimistic and damaged the 
Pan-Green as a whole.  TSU candidates soaked up enough Green 
votes to deprive the DPP of an additional 6-7 seats.  The TSU 
candidates were largely unknowns, both locally and 
nationally. As a result, few were strong enough to win. They 
could only siphon off votes that might have won enough DPP 
seats for Chen to reach his announced goal. 
 
3. (C) The overly-aggressive nomination strategy and decision 
not to drop stragglers greatly complicated Pan-Green efforts 
to allocate votes (pei-piao) evenly among its candidates 
within a given district.  Taoyuan County, where the DPP had 
sufficient votes to gain six seats but won only four, is 
illustrative of Pan-Green's poor performance in areas of 
potential gain.  The DPP nominated seven candidates -- one 
more than in 2001 -- but because the vote allocation to the 
lower three candidates was spread so evenly (around 30,000 
votes) a rival TSU candidate and a Pan-Blue People First 
Party (PFP) member beat out all three by 1,400 and 3,400 
votes, respectively. 
 
4. (C) Other areas, such as Taipei County, experienced what 
some observers are calling the "Shen Fa-hui" phenomenon.  DPP 
members who had been watching Shen trail badly in public 
opinion polls took it upon themselves to "allocate" their 
votes to Shen, who ended up the highest DPP vote-getter in 
the district.  According to several post-election polls, 
although DPP supporters were more likely to allocate votes 
than Pan-Blue members, many DPP supporters ignored party 
guidelines on vote allocation and made their own decisions on 
how to cast their votes. 
 
Centrist Voters Stayed Home 
--------------------------- 
 
4. (C) The low voter turnout, 59.16 percent compared to over 
80 percent in the presidential election, also worked against 
the Pan-Green, as many of the large block of centrist voters 
who made President Chen's victory in March opted to sit out 
this election.  The DPP had projecting in its internal 
polling a turnout of 62-64 percent.  The missing 3-5 percent, 
had they chosen to show, could have tilted the election in 
the Pan-Green's favor.  According to one poll, 25 percent of 
the people who chose not to vote were Pan-Green supporters 
versus 19 percent for Pan-Blue.  Regardless of party 
affiliation, however, the absence of centrist voters was felt 
hardest by "moderates" in both camps.  Hsu Chung-hsiung, a 
"lite Blue" legislator, pointed out that extreme 
pro-unification and pro-independence candidates came away 
with high vote tallies while moderates like himself and 
Bi-khim Hsiao had much lower vote totals than polls projected 
because centrist voters, their main base of support, did not 
vote in large numbers. 
 
KMT Grassroots Machinery:  Keeps on Tickin' 
------------------------------------------- 
 
5. (C) In contrast to the Pan-Green, the Pan-Blue retention 
of its majority defied analysts' predictions and suggests 
that the Kuomintang (KMT) extensive grassroots operations may 
not be as worn down as even KMT party insiders thought.  KMT 
Director for Overseas Affairs Ho Szu-yin told AIT the night 
of the election that his party had conducted a focused effort 
to identify and tap into a reserve of "contingency voters" 
that they directed in the last two days of the campaign to 
boost struggling candidates.  The Pan-Blue conservative 
approach in nominating its candidates, moreover, allowed the 
Pan-Blue to concentrate its resources and, in the end, 
support for most ex-KMT "maverick" candidates shifted back to 
the party candidates.  As a result, the KMT was able to pick 
up 11 seats and preserve the Pan-Blue majority despite the 
PFP's loss of 12 seats. 
 
Comment:  A Referendum on Taiwan Independence? 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
6. (C) In the post-election climate some Taiwan and foreign 
media, as well as local politicians, have touted the election 
results as a clear referendum against a radical Taiwan 
independence agenda.  However, it is difficult to tell 
whether election fatigue or a reaction to constitutional 
reform and "love Taiwan" rhetoric, which worked exceedingly 
well for President Chen earlier in the year, were responsible 
for the final outcome.  Pan-Blue leaders and moderates within 
the DPP are pointing to the "radical" pro-independence 
rhetoric in a bid to move Chen and the DPP back to a more 
centrist position (Septel).  Despite the rhetorical fury 
unleashed by President Chen and former President Lee Tung-hui 
in the final weeks of the election, most grassroots leaders 
that AIT consulted continue to say that national issues 
played only a small role in LY election politics.  Although 
the DPP defeat may weaken its ability to push the sometimes 
inflammatory and divisive agenda Chen proclaimed during the 
campaign, the reason for the defeat may lie more in the DPP's 
tactical and mechanical mistakes. 
PAAL