Reading tea leaves: Taiwan’s November 2022 ‘midterm’ elections

23 February 2023

On 26 November 2022, Taiwan held its municipal and county elections as heightened tensions between the US, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and Taiwan piqued the interest of the global community. These Taiwanese ‘midterm’ elections came on the heels of the mid-October 20th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, where Xi Jinping was ‘elected’ for an unprecedented third term and thereby consolidated his grip on power. The Taiwanese elections were followed by the US midterm elections in early November 2022, where the Biden administration was confronted with a divided Congress, as the Democratic Party lost its majority in the House of Representatives while only retaining a ‘knife-edge’ majority in the Senate.

The Taiwanese municipal and county elections — held every four years — select the mayors of six municipalities, chief executives, and councillors for 16 counties and cities on the island. Going into this election, the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party controlled 14 of the 22 executive seats, while the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) controlled six. Taipei City was held by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). In the 2022 November election, the KMT retained its tally of 14 executive seats, the DPP won five, the TPP won one, and independent candidates won two.

A cursory glance at the election results shows that the KMT and the DPP largely ‘held their ground’, which can be interpreted as a ‘neutral’ election outcome. Yet, while the KMT celebrated the result as an electoral victory, President (and DPP Chairperson) Tsai Ing-wen stepped down to take responsibility for the poor election outcome. Why did the DPP supposedly do comparatively poorly in this ‘midterm’ election? Why did Tsai Ing-wen resign from her party chairperson post? What does it imply for the presidential elections in 2024?

What happened in these elections?

First, the ruling party DPP lost the ‘big ones’ — the metropolitan cities of New Taipei, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan, and Kaohsiung — and underperformed in other places like Taipei City. Going in, the DPP held Taoyuan, Tainan, and Kaohsiung. Determined to win the other metropolitan cities, it nominated heavyweight candidates to win back Taipei and New Taipei, as well as retain Taoyuan. However, only in its stronghold of Kaohsiung did the DPP retain its votes comfortably, while witnessing an erosion of support in its other stronghold of Tainan. The party further lost significant support in the northern metropolitan areas — Taipei, New Taipei, and Taoyuan — even with heavyweight candidates.

With the 2024 presidential and legislative elections about two years away — which might as well be an eternity in politics — the DPP has time to regroup and recalibrate its message.

Second, fingers can be pointed at the negative image of, and scandals in, the DPP’s choice of candidates, its poor campaign strategy, and the quality of the opposition and third-party candidates. The party was affected by scandals plaguing some of its candidates, such as the proven academic plagiarism of a candidate supported by Tsai Ing-wen. Candidates involved in shoddy construction practices that led to a serious accident in a public recreation facility, the mess that was the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines, as well as the insinuation of corruption in the locally produced vaccine, all similarly negatively affected the DPP’s public image.

In addition, strong opposition candidates from the KMT and other third parties managed to grab votes away from non-partisan and median DPP voters. Observers also pointed out that the DPP overplayed the ‘anti-China, protect Taiwan’ card by presenting it as a stark and divisive dichotomous position. In Taiwan’s highly polarised society, where political parties need to appeal to median (non-partisan and independent) swing voters, the DPP’s overplaying of the ‘anti-China card’ did not appeal to those voters who were more concerned with domestic economic issues like inflation, unemployment, and low wages.

Third, in the factionalised world of DPP internal party politics, Tsai Ing-wen managed (as the DPP chairperson) to capitalise on her political popularity by becoming the main gatekeeper for the candidate selection in these major contests. By sidelining many senior DPP politicians and other factions, Tsai was able to nominate her own supporters and many younger next-gen politicians as candidates. The responsibility for these candidates’ poor showing fell solely on Tsai Ing-wen, making her resignation a fait accompli. Senior DPP politicians and faction leaders are now sharpening their swords to vie for the party leadership — as the winner will be the party standard-bearer for the 2024 presidential election.

Looking ahead to the 2024 elections

Going forward, does this outcome foretell what is going to happen in the 2024 presidential and legislative elections? The short answer is… probably not. The midterm election served as a good ‘check-point’ for all parties to pay attention to their strategies, candidate selection, and messages heading into the upcoming presidential and legislative elections.

In 2018, the KMT ‘won’ the municipal and county ‘midterm’ elections both on the back of fielding popular candidates and due to the poor performance of Tsai’s first administration, yet it failed to win the 2020 presidential and legislative elections. The KMT’s own circumspect victory celebrations indicate that they too have learnt to understand that history may repeat itself if they do not deliver results and ignore the DPP’s vaunted electoral machine.

Taiwan’s national-level elections are very much affected by PRC-Taiwan relations, their translation into the domestic body politic, and events and actors outside of Taiwan. In 2020, the DPP managed to capitalise on the PRC’s bullying behaviour against Taiwan and on the COVID-19 pandemic to retain its grip on the presidency and its legislative majority. With the 2024 presidential and legislative elections about two years away — which might as well be an eternity in politics — the DPP has time to regroup and recalibrate its message.

The DPP has now elected Vice-President Lai Ching-Te as its new party chairman, while the Tsai administration announced a major cabinet reshuffle during the Lunar New Year holiday. While Cross-Strait relations will remain an important issue, the DPP has to put more emphasis on domestic ‘bread-and-butter’ issues — inflation, wage stagnation, and corruption — if it wants to gain back the voters’ support. In the next 24 months, much can change that can either help or hurt the electoral chances of both the ruling party and the opposition challengers.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author biography

Alexander C. Tan is a Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Canterbury (Christchurch, New Zealand) and a University Chair Professor at the Department of Political Science and the Taiwan Institute of Governance and Communications Research at National Chengchi University (Taipei, Taiwan). Image credit: Flickr/DCS_1795.