Some citizens may feel devastated by this picture while some may feel happy. If the national legislature elections had happened on the 24th November, 2018, then the composition of the current parliament would reflect this picture. Based on the results of the single-member district elections, the Kuomintang(KMT) would win 50 of 73 seats. The Democratic Progressive Party(DPP) would drop from 52 to 19 seats. The political colours of parliament would be significantly changed from green (DPP’s colour) to blue (KMT’s colour).
In reality, 2018 was the year of the mayoral elections. The legislature elections will take place in 2020. However, what if the 2018 results are repeated in the legislature elections? Let’s discuss the basic premise of this picture. To begin, we divided the legislative candidates of the single-member district elections into two groups, pan-Green or pan-Blue. Then, we divided the 2018 municipal mayoral candidates into two groups, pan-Blue or pan-Green, according to their political colours of their parties. By doing so, we can analyse how many votes the pan-Blue candidates won, and how many votes the pan-Green candidates won in the municipal mayoral elections last year. This allows us to study the behaviours of the constituencies down to the village/township level. Finally, we took the result of last year’s mayoral elections to predict the result of the single-member district election in 2020.
According to the hypothesis drawn from the single-member district elections, the seats of the pan-Green would decrease dramatically from current 52 seats to 19 seats, while the seats of the pan-Blue would soar up to 50 seats. Note that, in this hypothesis, there are 4 seats that are not counted as either pan-Blue or pan-Green. The reason for this is because the election constituencies of these 4 seats were regarded as Ko Wen-je’s voters. Ko Wen-je was elected as the mayor of Taipei City, but Ko’s political value is ambiguous and cannot be classified as either pan-Blue or pan-Green. Therefore, the Taipei city has been marked orange on the picture. As we can see from the colour distribution, the pan-Blue dominated the single-member district elections.
Nonetheless, it is still hard to tell if the prediction of this picture will become reality. Any international and domestic event or issue can influence future legislature elections. Don’t forget that the personal characteristics and the personal qualities of the candidates are important elements in a campaign. First-time voters and the young voters are also key factors. What matters is not the true nature of the character of each candidate, but how personal attributes are perceived by the voters. Furthermore, foreign influence, more specifically, China’s sharp and soft powers may also impact on future elections.
However, the power of imagination makes the future infinite.
Infuse your life with action and don’t wait for it to happen.