16 January 2016 (2016-01-16) 2020 → 6,894,744 3,813,365 56.1% 31.0% Date 16 January 2016 | Turnout 66.27% 3,813,365 1,576,861 31.0% 12.8% Location Taiwan | |
 | ||
Winners Tsai Ing‑wen, Su Chia‑chyuan | ||
General elections were held in Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, on Saturday, 16 January 2016 to elect the 14th President and Vice President of the Republic of China, and all 113 members of the ninth Legislative Yuan.
Contents
- Electoral system
- Party primaries
- Democratic Progressive Party
- Kuomintang
- People First Party
- Taiwan Solidarity Union
- Presidential candidate petition
- Legislative candidates
- Chou Tzu yu flag incident
- References
Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was elected President, defeating her rival Eric Chu of the Kuomintang (KMT) with 56% of the vote, the second-largest vote share claimed by a presidential candidate since Ma Ying-jeou in 2008, and the largest winning margin (25.08%) since the first direct presidential election in 1996.
The Democratic Progressive Party, led by Tsai, also secured a majority in the Legislative Yuan, resulting in the first majority by a non-KMT party and the first majority won by the DPP.
The Central Election Commission reported that turnout for the presidential election was 66.27% of voters, the lowest turnout since the office was first directly elected in 1996.
Electoral system
Presidential candidates and vice-presidential running mates are elected on the same ticket, using first-past-the-post. Due to constitutional two-term limits, incumbent president Ma Ying-jeou was ineligible to seek re-election. This was the sixth direct election of the president and vice president by the citizens of Taiwan, which was previously indirectly elected by the National Assembly prior to 1996.
The 113 members of the Legislative Yuan are elected by a supplementary member system, with 73 from geographical constituencies (General) via first-past-the-post, 6 from two 3-member aboriginal constituencies via single non-transferable vote, and 34 from closed list proportional representation (PR) via a national party vote.
All three presidential candidates announced their running mates in November 2015, and for the first time in Taiwanese electoral history, none of the vice presidential candidates shared the same party affiliation as their corresponding presidential candidates. A record-breaking 556 candidates ran for legislative seats.
Party primaries
According to article 22 of the President and Vice President Election and Recall Act, any political party that garnered 5% of the national vote in the preceding presidential or legislative election, may directly nominate presidential and vice presidential candidates. Parties fulfilling this criteria in this election include the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Kuomintang (KMT), People First Party (PFP) and Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU).
Democratic Progressive Party
According to internal party protocols, presidential primaries are conducted via nationwide opinion polling. Registration was held between 2 and 16 February 2015. Tsai Ing-wen, party chair and former vice-premier, was the only candidate that registered, and thus nationwide opinion polling that were planned to be conducted between 16 and 18 March 2015 were suspended. Tsai was duly nominated by the DPP on 15 April 2015. On 16 November 2015, Tsai Ing-wen announced former health minister Chen Chien-jen as her running mate, who consequently resigned from his post as deputy director of Academia Sinica.
Kuomintang
According to internal party protocols, presidential primaries are conducted via a combination of party member vote with 30% weighting, and nationwide opinion polling with 70% weighting. Registration and petitions were conducted between 20 April to 18 May 2015. Two candidates, including Hung Hsiu-chu, deputy speaker of the Legislative Yuan; and Yang Chih-liang, former health minister, registered. Hung garnered 35,210 signatories in her petition, crossing the eligibility threshold of 15,000 signatories; while Yang garnered only 5,234 signatories, nullifying his candidacy. The party member vote was suspended because Hung was the only eligible candidate. Nationwide opinion polling were conducted from 12 to 13 June 2015; with equal weighting between approval rating and general election polling. Hung garnered an average of 46.204% in the nationwide polling, crossing the eligibility threshold of 30%, and was nominated on 19 July 2015.
However, her nomination was revoked by party chair Eric Chu during an extraordinary party convention on 17 October 2015. Chu subsequently replaced Hung as the presidential candidate of the KMT, and announced former labor minister Wang Ju-hsuan as his running mate. Some have alleged that this process was undemocratic.
People First Party
James Soong, party chair of the PFP, announced his presidential bid on 6 August 2015. He announced Minkuotang (MKT) chair and legislator Hsu Hsin-ying as his running mate in November 2015. The PFP–MKT coalition became the first pair of candidates to register for the election on 23 November 2015.
Taiwan Solidarity Union
Although the Taiwan Solidarity Union was eligible to nominate a presidential candidate, party chair Huang Kun-huei publicly announced on 29 June 2015 that the TSU would not do so, in favor of supporting Tsai Ing-wen's presidential bid.
Presidential candidate petition
According to article 22 of the President and Vice President Election and Recall Act, presidential and vice presidential candidates not nominated by an eligible political party, may qualify via a petition signed by at least 1.5% of the number of eligible voters during the preceding legislative election: a threshold of 269,709 eligible voters.
Legislative candidates
The two major parties, the Kuomintang and the Democratic Progressive Party, used different strategies when nominating candidates for the Legislative Yuan elections. The Kuomintang nominated a candidate in all but one of the constituency seats. The sole exception was Taipei 2, where they instead supported the New Party candidate. The DPP, on the other hand, developed a cooperation strategy with several minor parties. The DPP agreed to support candidates from these parties in exchange for agreements not to stand in tight races where they might sap DPP votes. These included the New Power Party, the Taiwan Solidarity Union, and the Green-Social Democratic Coalition, as well as several independents. This strategy did not work in Hsinchu, where the NPP and DPP backed separate candidates. A total of 43 female candidates won election to the Legislative Yuan, the most ever to take office.
Chou Tzu-yu flag incident
Chou Tzu-yu, a 16-year-old Taiwanese singer and a member of the South Korean K-pop girl group Twice, attracted attention with her appearance in a South Korean variety show called My Little Television, in which she introduced herself and waved the flag of the Republic of China alongside that of South Korea. Japan's flag was also shown as the other members of the group represented their nationality throughout the show. However, soon after the episode was broadcast it sparked controversy in China when Taiwanese-born China-based singer Huang An accused Chou of being a "pro-Taiwanese independence activist". After the uproar over the issue, the group's record label, JYP Entertainment cancelled all activities of the group in China and released a video where Chou is shown reading an apology, all this the day before the election. She mentioned in part:
"There is only one China. The two shores are one. I feel proud being a Chinese. I, as a Chinese, have hurt the company and netizens’ emotions due to my words and actions during overseas promotions. I feel very, very sorry and guilty."
Nevertheless, many Taiwanese saw her apology as "humiliating and a sign of Taiwan's predicament that Chou had to apologize for expressing her Taiwanese identity and for showing her nation's flag." Tsai in her victory speech also mentioned how it had "angered many Taiwanese people, regardless of their political affiliation." And although it was believed by many that this incident affected the election, contributing to one or two percentage points of Tsai's winning margin, it was thought that the issue probably had a very minor impact on the final outcome since most believed that people would have voted for Tsai anyway. However it is believed that the incident might potentially contribute to Taiwan's desire to become an independent state.