text: Wang Danping
Less than 140 days from the end of the year, Taiwan's "nine-in-one" election, and the candidates for Taiwan's "Six Capitals" are roughly determined. The "nine-in-one" election of is the most valued part of county and city mayors, and the "six capitals" ranked directly in the "municipalities" are even more important. Because the population of the "Six Capitals" is 16.07 million, accounting for 69.33% of the total population of Taiwan, the "Six Capitals" have far exceeded that of the other sixteen counties and cities. More importantly, the results of the "Six Capitals" election will have a significant impact on the 2024 Taiwan leadership election.
From the current situation, for the "six capitals", the Kuomintang and the DPP are both "sitting two and grabbing three and looking for four" situations; the Kuomintang has the advantage in New Taipei City and Taichung City, while the DPP has the upper hand in Tainan City and Kaohsiung City; Taipei City and Taoyuan City have become the key to the decisive victory of the two parties.
If you want to understand the election situation analysis of the three cities of New Taipei, Taichung and Tainan, you can follow the previous article of this official account "Analysis of the general trend of Taiwan's "Six Capitals" Election (One)". This article analyzes the three cities of Kaohsiung, Taipei and Taoyuan.
Kaohsiung City
Kaohsiung City, with a population of 2.724 million, ranks third in the "Six Capitals", but its area is 2,951.8 square kilometers, but its number one in the "Six Capitals". Although Chen Chi-mai lost to Han Kuo-yu in 2018, the DPP soon removed Han Kuo-yu. There was no special accident this year, and Chen Chi-mai should be re-elected. The reason is:
chen Chimai
——The Democratic Progressive Party has strong strength in Kaohsiung . Before the restructuring, Kaohsiung County was ruled by the Green Camp in 1985 and the Kaohsiung County and City merged in 2010. The original Kaohsiung City has been the world of the DPP since 2002; although Chen Chi-mai was defeated by Han Kuo-yu in 2018, Han Kuo-yu was dismissed for a year and a half.
—In the May Policy Satisfaction Survey, those who supported Chen Chimai's re-election increased by 10.8 percentage points compared with last year, reaching 64.7%, while those who did not support it decreased by 7.7 percentage points. The improvement in the governance score is the highest in Taiwan.
—The DPP’s party support in Kaohsiung is three times that of the KMT. Currently, the eight "legislators" are all DPPs.
——KMT Kaohsiung mayor candidate has been looking for a long time, but the willingness to be strong is not high, and the willingness to be high is not strong. Even Ke Zhien, who has been nominated by the Kuomintang, publicly expressed his lack of intention when he ranked first in the party polls.
- Ke Zhien has no relationship with Kaohsiung City. He neither has the affinity and explosive power of Han Kuo-yu, and his ability to create issues is far inferior, and it is difficult to turn the tables in the short term.
Hidden worries:
Chen Qimai's political performance is not outstanding, and his overall performance is not satisfactory.
Taipei City
Taipei City and Taoyuan City have both expired, and there may be a third force to compete, so there is a greater chance of variables.
Jiang Wan'an
Among the "Six Capitals", Taipei City has the smallest area, with only 271.7 square kilometers, but has 2.47 million people. It is Taiwan's political and economic center and the DPP has the poorest strength among the "Six Capitals". Since the reorganization of the municipality in 1967, only Chen Shui-bian has served as mayor. This time, the Kuomintang nominated Jiang Wan'an, the Democratic Progressive Party nominated Chen Shizhong, and Popular Party were run by the current deputy mayor Huang Shanshan. At present, Jiang Wan'an is slightly optimistic, but Chen Shizhong and Huang Shanshan are not without opportunities. The reason is:
—Taipei City has a higher quality of voters and more middle-class people; compared with other places, the proportion of people who choose not to choose the party is higher.
—In the past year, Jiang Wanan's support has always been ahead in various polls. In the polls at the end of June, Jiang Wanan received nearly 40% of the support, Huang Shanshan 24% and Chen Shizhong 18%; although Chen Shizhong once appeared online polls, it did not really shake Jiang Wanan's leading position.
Huang Shanshan
Chen Shizhong
——The image of Chen Shizhong’s media darling has faded.Polls at the end of May showed that the public was dissatisfied with the government's preparations for related policies such as children's vaccines, quick screening reagents, medical care for confirmed patients, and antiviral drugs, and 56% of the respondents were dissatisfied with Chen Shizhong's epidemic prevention performance. The poll after his recruitment showed that the support level was only 28%, far behind Jiang Wanan's 53.5%, and Huang Shanshan's 18.4%.
- Chen Shizhong's negative images such as arrogance, hard-working, and scapegoating have been deeply rooted in people's hearts and are not conducive to his efforts to win the recognition of middle-aged voters.
—4.1 million people in Taiwan were infected with the epidemic and more than 7,700 people died. Chen Shizhong, the commander of the epidemic command center, cannot refuse to blame. He will inevitably be severely criticized by his opponent during the campaign.
—Huang Shanshan ranked second or third in all polls, and Ke Wenzhe’s ruling achievements are not her assets but her liabilities.
- Chen Shui-bian was able to enjoy profits back then because of the division of the blue camp; but most of the supporters of the People's Party were green in the middle. Although there were blue and green tickets, there were more green camps.
Hidden worries:
——Abandoned insurance effect. The DPP hopes that Huang Shanshan will be marginalized and “abandoning yellow and protecting Chen” will appear; the PPP hopes to replicate the last election to “abandoning green and protecting white”, and Huang Shanshan stands out.
Given that Jiang Wan'an's leading range has not reached a safe distance, and there are more than four months left before the election, the epidemic, economic conditions, and the development of cross-strait relations are still in an uncertain world, so Jiang Wan'an is not sure of victory, and Chen Shizhong still has room for a try. Although Huang Shanshan's chances are slim, there is still a glimmer of hope.
Taoyuan City
The voter structure was originally blue than green, but after Zheng Wencan was elected, he was evenly affected by rain and dew, and blue and green took all, so the outside world was originally optimistic that the DPP would continue to connect with the villages, especially the Kuomintang nomination process, and there were many storms. The recruitment of Zhang Shanzheng even aroused the local faction's rebound, so that after the DPP summoned Lin Zhijian in late June, the media was almost one-sided. But no one expected that Lin Zhijian's plagiarism storm of master's thesis would immediately fall into a dilemma. In the latest poll, Zhang Shanzheng and Lin Zhijian's support is almost the same; 94% of online polls do not believe that Lin Zhijian did not copy. Once the report of NTU and Chinese University is released, it is determined that Lin Zhijian's paper is indeed plagiarized, which violates academic ethics, and will have a major blow to his election situation.
Zhang Shanzheng
Lin Zhijian
It can be imagined that Lin Zhijian will beat his Hsinchu experience, hoping to dilute the plagiarism storm with political achievements. The Central Committee of the DPP will do its best to excuse him and reduce serious plagiarism into common cheating for students. In addition to highlighting his political achievements as the "Premier of the Executive", Zhang Shanzheng will naturally pursue Lin Zhijian's plagiarism incident and hold on to it. Whoever can touch the hearts of the people will be half successful. In any case, there will be a fierce battle between the two sides. As for Lai Xiangling of the People's Party, she can only play a role in disrupting the situation at most.
In short, New Taipei , Taichung , Tainan and Kaohsiung are the four cities that are incumbent. Although Hou Youyi, Lu Xiuyan, Huang Weizhe, Chen Chimai and others have a good situation, they dare not take it lightly; and Taipei and Taoyuan, it can be said that everyone has hope, and they are not sure.
The only sure thing is that once any political party wins the "four capitals" among the "six capitals", the 2024 Taiwan leadership election will surely boost its momentum.
(the author is the chairman of the Taiwan Belt and Road Economic and Trade Promotion Association)
