Xiong Xing Researcher at the Center for Taiwan and East Asian Studies at Central China Normal University
Song Chuyu
77-year-old People First Party Chairman Song Chuyu recently officially announced that he will participate in the 2020 Taiwan leadership election. Because there were already many in advance? The channel released the news in advance, so it was not surprising that Song Chuyu's re-elected election. However, what exactly is the reason that the veteran political player Song Chuyu still wants to run for election even though he is no longer favored?
Song Chuyu has been in Taiwan's political arena for many years and is a controversial politician in Taiwan's politics. His political career has been ups and downs and has had a profound impact on Taiwan's politics. The early Song Dynasty had a smooth journey. Shortly after graduating from an American university and returning to Taiwan, he began to serve as Chiang Ching-kuo's English secretary. He became the "Chief of News" in his 30s. During his tenure as the "Director of News", he was awarded the titles of "The Most Beautiful Director" and "Star of Tomorrow" due to his handsome appearance, lively personality and harmonious personal charm. Moreover, Song has a soft figure and has contacts with people from all walks of life. After Chiang Ching-kuo's death, at a critical period of transfer of political power in Taiwan, it was precisely because of the then deputy secretary-general of the Kuomintang, Song Chuyu, that Lee Teng-hui finally defeated other competitors and became the leader of Taiwan.
In 1994, Song Chuyu was elected as the first and last "elected governor" in Taiwan with a high vote. During his tenure, he traveled to 309 towns and cities across Taiwan, and accumulated extensive connections and public support. Later, he had a feud with Lee Teng-hui, broke with the Kuomintang in 1999, and participated in the 2000 Taiwan leadership election as an independent candidate from the Party, but lost to Democratic Progressive Party candidate Chen Shui-bian with a slight gap of 2.5%. In 2004, Song partnered with the Kuomintang candidate Lien Chan as his deputy, and lost again by a 0.22% gap. After losing the election to mayor of Taipei with a low approval rating of 4.14% in 2006, Song Chuyu, who suffered a heavy blow, also announced that he would "withdraw from Taiwan politics from now on." But in 2012 and 2016, he ran twice, but both were not elected.
Kuo Yu
This time is Song Chuyu's fifth time participating in the Taiwan leadership election. The reason why Song runs again is somewhat similar to 2012 and 2016, but there are also some differences. Song's main motivation for the election was obviously not intended to be the position of the leader of Taiwan, but to the survival of the People First Party. The direct motivation was to boost the election of the People First Party's "legislator" election.
According to the latest revised Taiwan legislative body regulations, if a political party in Taiwan receives more than 3% of the votes in the "Legislative Council" election without district-level elections, the party can subsidize NT$50 per vote per year for each vote in the next four years, which is the so-called "party subsidy", and the total amount of this subsidy is about tens of millions of New Taiwan dollars per year. At the same time, if you get more than 3 "legislators" seats, you can establish a party group with a legislative body and participate in negotiations between the government and the opposition. In the 2016 election, "The Power of the Times" won a total of 5 seats and the People First Party won a total of 3 seats, becoming the other two "Legislative Yuan Party Groups" except the two major parties of the Democratic Progressive Party and the Kuomintang, and becoming a key "minority" in some agendas.
People First Party had brief glory in its early days. After founding the party in 2001, it won 46 seats in the total number of 225 seats and 34 seats in 2004. In 2008, Song Chuyu did not run for regional leader and the number of "legislators" seats was reduced by 113 seats, the People First Party won only one seat in the "legislators" election that year. Song Chuyu ran twice in 2012 and 2016, and only won three seats. It can be seen that recent elections have become a "war of defense" for the People First Party.
Tsai Ing-wen
And in the 2020 "legislator" election, the People First Party, which was originally unfavorable, was constantly poached by the People First Party led by Ke Wen-je , which also aroused the sense of crisis of the People First Party. At present, the People's Party of Taiwan has surpassed the People First Party and the "power of the times", becoming the third largest party in Taiwan, and vowing to win more than 10 seats in the 2020 election.Taiwan’s “legislator” election has the obvious characteristics of the so-called “hens bring chickens”, that is, party candidates have a great driving effect on the election situation. This also makes Song Chuyu have to make another effort to survive in Taiwan’s political arena in order to avoid the people-first party being more bubbled.
Song also captured the Taiwanese people's dislike of the long-term vicious struggle of blue and green in the first two elections, and shouted the slogans of "beyond blue and green, people's livelihood first" and "evil fighting is put on both sides, people's livelihood is put on the middle" in the election, hoping to attract votes from light blue and light green, especially blue-slanting middle voters. This time, Song chose Yu Xiang, who is known as Taiwan's "advertising godmother", as his deputy as his partner. He is expected to have a more outstanding performance in media operations, but the biggest problem is that his candidates themselves have lost their appeal to voters.
Under the current situation where the blue and green showdown is the overall trend, although Song Chuyu is almost impossible to win the election, it still has some impact and variables on the 2020 Taiwan leadership election. At present, middle-aged voters have become the key group in the 2020 election. This group accounts for about one-third of the total number of voters, and most of them do not express their opinions or continue to wait and see. These groups are also the targets that all camps are currently fighting for.
Guo Taiming
In the political spectrum, the People First Party has been wandering repeatedly in recent years, and it has even been considered "green in oranges", but overall its supporters are blue. In 2016, Song Chuyu's People First Party received 1.5 million votes, a large part of which were considered a helpless or grief choice for voters who were originally from the Blue Camp but were dissatisfied with the various actions of the Kuomintang. According to the circulating list of People First Party’s “legislators” that are not divided into districts, almost all come from the camps of Terry Gou and Ko Wen-je, which shows that there may be so-called “Jubai” cooperation.
When there is still no real integration within the Kuomintang camp, Song Chuyu's goal is mainly for some voters in the camps such as Guo Taiming, Ko Wen-je and Wang Jin-ping, that is, some voters who are neither satisfied with Tsai Ing-wen nor are willing to vote for Han Kuo-yu, especially some voters who are "knowledge blue" and "economic blue" and some light green voters in the blue camp, thus resulting in the effect of vote division. Currently, Han Kuo-yu's poll is about 10 percentage points behind Tsai Ing-wen. Although Song Chuyu's run for election will be divided into some votes from both the blue and green sides, overall, more blue and less green may eventually benefit the green camp fishermen. (Editor in charge: Wang Xin)
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