KMT 'mid-term defeat' analogy mistaken

Another oft-cited example of mid-term setbacks is 1966, when the increasing unpopularity of the Vietnam War dragged down then-U.S. President Lyndon Johnson's Democrats, resulting in Republicans gaining 48 seats in the House and three in the Senate.

Looking at Saturday's polls from this perspective, the KMT lost only two of the 14 county chief and large city mayoralty positions.

Among those, the Hualien County commissioner's seat was taken by an independent who remains affiliated with the KMT and its “pan-blue” alliance.

Besides holding on to Yunlin, Chiayi and Pingtung counties, the DPP only managed to snatch away a single county from the KMT in Yilan.

That is hardly a major setback comparable to the U.S. mid-terms of 1966, 1974 or 1994.

In terms of voting percentages, the DPP garnered 45.32 percent of the county chief and large-city mayor votes, nearly a six percent increase from four years ago.

That six percent loss would compare to an average mid-term bleed for an American governing party, although the increase in votes did not translate into six percent more seats for the DPP.

The DPP did not come nearly as close to scoring big in voting for 592 city and county council seats, where the KMT garnered 43.94 percent of votes and the DPP took only 24.42 percent.

The rest was shared by smaller parties and independents who often win local elections no matter which party is in power.

The KMT ended the day with 289 of these seats, while the DPP got only 128.

The voting for 211 small town mayors was even more lopsided in favor of the KMT, with the ruling party garnering 48.82 percent of the vote and 121 mayoralties, and the DPP winning 20.04 percent to take just 34 of them and the remainder going to independents.

These results hardly point to a huge American-style setback for the KMT in mid-term elections.

As has been true in the past, the KMT remains the largest single force in Taiwan's local politics, although rivals from the DPP, along with traditional local factions and clans, are continuing to make small gains.

The KMT's new policy of refusing to nominate candidates with criminal convictions, such as the maverick Fu Kun-chi who went on to win the Hualien County commissionership as an independent, obviously had a larger impact on the results than public disappointment with President Ma's performance.

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