What I'm about to say, I express with the utmost humility. These are my observations, and they seem to go against those of people whose experience in Taiwan spans decades, not just years. I feel I should put this out there because I am starting to believe that certain generational sentiments concerning Taiwan -- towards independence, China, and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) -- are pertinent not just in considering politics in Taiwan but perhaps also in understanding those of us who pay close attention to what happens here.

The point I will try to make, in brief, is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) turned what would have likely been a close defeat into something reminiscent of Mike Tyson's 38-second DQ of Peter McNeeley back in '95. I agree that there were structural elements of the new system that in the end worked against the DPP, but most of what the DPP did over the last six months or more only seemed to exacerbate the problem.

I had been reading the articles that, for months, showing growing certainty of one thing: the DPP was going to lose the legislative elections. Just looking at the map that A-Gu had up for months of different precincts and their likely choice, illustrated by their color, I was disconcerted at just how many blue balloons there were on that map. Yet, I don't think many people expected such a horrible loss. Tim Maddog certainly didn't anticipate a "startling defeat" in the face of his impressions that the KMT was on the defensive. Taiwan Echo didn't expect it either:

And my heart turned colder and colder each time I clicked to a new page--- where are DPP's seats ? I can't find them.

In the end, I collected only 13 ... in the entire central and northern part of Taiwan, DPP got only 3. They even lost big in the southern part.

And don't mention about the referendum. Both subjects got pathetically low voting rates --- 26% something ...

For the referendum of "Asking KMT to return illegally obtained properties", its rejection by people means in the next 3 years Taiwanese are not allowed to ask KMT again with another referendum.

I felt the same. I had been prepared for a loss, not a blood-bath. I was especially upset about the failed referendum on the KMT's stolen assets, a necessary step towards achieving transitional justice, I thought.

Since that fateful Saturday, the steady flow of theories as to how this could have happened has only just started to slow. Gerrymandering, vote-buying, etc. are all, supposedly, the root causes for the disaster. It has not gone unnoticed, for example, that the DPP actually won a far larger percentage of the vote than is represented by the number of seats they now have.

I agree (how couldn't I?) that these all had detrimental effects on the DPP's numbers.

Aside from the systemic handicaps handed to the DPP, Michael Turton proposed another theory, that in essence, the Taiwanese were moving towards not who was better but who would bring home the bacon:

In commentary on blogs, in the media, and even at such august bodies as the Heritage Foundation a fundamental error stands out: the imposition of ethnocentric western models on Taiwan politics. Thus, we hear analyses that claim that voters were disappointed with DPP policies, and hence, did not come out to vote for it. Similarly, we hear reassuring claims that being out of power will be good for the DPP, that it will come back revamped and ready for action. It is my belief that such claims misunderstand the structure and nature of politics on the Beautiful Island, and thus underestimate the shape and impact of the KMT victory on the island's political, economic, and environmental future.

He later explains that

no one interested and informed could fail to notice that for the last eight years the KMT-dominated legislature has been a disaster for the island. Yet on Jan 12 it gathered all 5 million pan-Blue votes unto itself, ensuring over 80 seats in the legislature. Anyone who wishes to argue that the public voted for reasons of public policy has to ponder that if voters really do care about the policy success of their legislators, and really do swing between parties, then they swung in the direction of the more corrupt, obstructionist, and anti-democracy of the two parties. The answer to this apparent conundrum is quite simple: voters in Taiwan are not attracted by sound public policy, but by flows of money out of the central government into the personal networks of the politicians they support. Most could care less how many bills the KMT boycotts, if they even know. Rather, they are strictly focused on what to them are local bread-and-butter issues: where be my bacon? Candidates respond to this: outside of Taipei many candidates offered billboards with frank estimates of how much money they'd brought into the district, or how much they were planning to.

Frankly, I don't understand where Michael gets the idea that this is anything different from when, for example, the most populated Western democracy in the world finds large numbers of poorer, white voters going against their economic needs and voting for a candidate who will give tax breaks to the rich. Their primary reason for voting him in: his claims of being a born again Christian (which they are later disappointed to find out isn't exactly true).

It's a sad truism about democracy that very few people have the time to actually study the candidates' positions, his actions, and to verify the claims made for and against the candidates. If that wasn't the case, why would people be voting for Giuliani on the basis of his "tough" stance against terrorism?

Why should it be any different in Taiwan? While I certainly don't deny many of the reasons presented about gerrymandering, corruption, and flaws in the system, I certainly believe a whole heap o' blame should be placed squarely on the DPP, not because they are wrong in believing that Taiwan should be a part of the UN or that referendums on stolen assets are necessary but because now is the wrong time to focus on it.

I suppose, then, that I too am guilty of imposing the same ethnocentric paradigms as many a Westerner before me.

For example, Michael brought up a story from Taiwan News that said [the quote is very long, so I recommend reading the whole thing]:

From September 2000 to the end of last year, the Legislature has abused its control over the weekly meetings of the procedural committee to engage in over 6,300 instances of boycotts to block normal debate and review of important bills submitted by the government.

The list includes 165 boycotts of a DPP draft bill to set up an independent commission against corruption, 101 boycotts of the draft law to set up an impartial commission to investigate and recover "party assets" improperly obtained (that is, stolen) from the state by the KMT during its authoritarian rule, and nearly 100 boycotts of other "sunshine" laws.

In terms of "struggling for the economy," the Legislature has delayed central government budgets and public construction and enterprise budgets every year and frozen over NT$530 billion in allocations, causing serious cutbacks in government services and development programs and has refused to approve a long-awaited law to promote a renewable energy industry.

In terms of clean government, the Legislature has only approved one of a host of new "sunshine" anti-corruption draft bills submitted by the DPP-led Cabinet, namely the DPP-proposed law regulating lobbying.

In the field of human rights, the record shows a clearly defined "division of labor," namely that the DPP Cabinet has submitted new human rights reform bills while the KMT-controlled Legislature has specialized in blocking their review and passage.

Herein lies exactly what should have been the sole focus of the DPP from start to finish. There should have been no referendums. As you moved around Taiwan, you should not have seen "UN for Taiwan" banners, stickers, and posters. Instead, the island should have been carpeted with a message of deepening democracy by ending the KMT's majority in the Legislative Yuan, disallowing them the right to boycott what they do not accept and push through what they want for themselves. It should have harped on at every press conference and in every editorial just what the DPP had tried to do for the economy, for equality, for justice, and for the future. If the claims of the above article are true, the DPP should have painted itself as the party of ideas for the future, the party that would solidify the still young democracy and its economy before it dealt empty threats from China.

I'm sure one could argue that the DPP did focus on these issues, but the biased media only presented the people of Taiwan with a skewed picture. I don't doubt that there is a media bias, but offering that as an excuse for failure doesn't really cut it. The DPP's message should have been clear and spoken with one voice, over and over, which it wasn't.

Instead, the greens seemed to make it way to easy to have themselves labeled as China-obsessed, stuck on independence, and negligent of anything that matters right now, like making ends meet, making sure children get a good education, etc. I think one of the most notable events in the lead-up to these elections was President Chen's decision to hold a military parade for the first time in over a decade. As Bent put it:

The last 16 years have seen unbelievable progress in Taiwan, especially in the area of political freedom and human rights. And THAT is what we should be celebrating. Why not a parade showing off the gains of the last 16 years? Why not a speech highlighting Taiwan’s democracy? Instead of competing with China, why not show off the contrast?

And there were other issues: changing the name of the CKS Memorial hall and a bill seeking justice for the victims of 2-28, to name a couple. Very few people think Chiang deserves a memorial, and people certainly want justice for past wrongs. Yet, writing the wrongs of the last fifty years is not a valid election platform when people have serious concerns about the present and future states of their country.

This is especially true with the younger voters who are making up a larger and larger number of the electorate -- which I have mentioned time and again. These sort of displays do not interest most young people. It simply does not work for them. The only exception, I think -- if it is presented correctly -- would have been the referendum on transitional justice as that does have a particular bearing on the now, seeing as it involves how the KMT funds its campaigns. More and more people seem to think it is increasingly a non-issue, or a "red herring" as Shelly Riggers put it.

Finally, what really angers me about this election, in the end, is that the structural handicaps dealt to the DPP in the elections system were only exacerbated by the actions of the DPP. Had they chosen a different route, the DPP may have been able to turn a loss in the legislative elections into more support in the presidential elections. The Taiwanese people would have been able to see that the loss was unfair, and they may have chosen to at least counteract it by throwing support behind Frank Hsieh, having a renewed faith in his desire to move the country forward, despite their fears of four more years of impasse and disagreement between the executive and legislative branches. Now, though, many Taiwanese feel as if they only have the choice of (1) voting for the DPP, which they see as focusing on all of the wrong issues and as being completely powerless after January's pummeling or (2) voting for the party that seems to be advocating the kind of policies they want, even though they fear -- many gravely -- the idea of the KMT having power over both the Legislative and Executive branches of government.

It does give me hope to see that Hsieh has offered to endorse the KMT's UN referendum to see if they really believe in it, but that's only a start....