PRESIDENTIAL AND PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS IN TAIWAN 2024: DISCUSSION

To coincide with the new legislative period, the Taiwan Research Centre at Ruhr University Bochum organised a panel discussion on the presidential and parliamentary elections in Taiwan. These took place on 13 January 2024 and attracted a great deal of public and international attention. Dr Josie-Marie Perkuhn (pictured) discussed the results and implications of the historic election with the correspondent of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Jürgen Kahl, the head of the Research Centre for Taiwanese Culture and Literature, Prof. Dr Christine Moll-Murata, moderated by Prof. Dr Jörn-Carsten Gottwald. For the first time since the introduction of democratic elections, an incumbent ruling party was able to assert itself for the third time and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was once again able to put forward its presidential candidate. Lai Ching-te 賴清德 (DPP) will replace the incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen 蔡英文. However, the presidential candidate was also unable to achieve a majority of more than 50 per cent for the first time. This was accompanied by the loss of the parliamentary majority.

There are two notable changes compared to the distribution of seats: There are fewer parties and no party gains an outright majority of at least 57 seats. The DPP wins only 51 seats and the strongest opposition party wins 52 seats. The newly formed TPP for Taiwan's People's Party led by Ko Wen-je 柯文哲 (TPP) is represented with 8 seats. While two nominally independent parties were able to win a seat in parliament, the New Power Party (NPP), People's First Party (PFP) and New Party (NP) are no longer represented. Chen Chao-ming 陳超明, for example, was able to hold his own as one of the independents in the administrative district of Miaoli. He was a member of the KMT until a bribery case. The coloured map of the electoral distribution also shows the shift from a north-south to an east-west distribution that had already begun. Green Kaohsiung remains firmly in the hands of the DPP, while all six seats in the district around Taoyuan International Airport fell to the opposition party KMT following political scandals.