Presidential election hinges on cross-strait clout, pro-business stance and electability

So far, it has been and continues to be an extremely tight game between the blue KMT and the green DPP. While the PFP's bid is widely seen as a long shot for the presidency, the orange party could be in the strategic position of a kingmaker courted by the two major parties.

The KMT has refrained from going all out with the PFP in order to avoid attacking its Chairman Soong, once the KMT's flag bearer who still touts his image as the “true blue candidate.” The recent proposal of a “grand coalition” by the DPP's Tsai, on the other hand, is a thinly veiled attempt to draw the PFP to her side, or at least to keep Soong on the ballet in order to fend Ma off.

With the high stakes involved for all three parties and the razor sharp margin between the blue and the green camp, this election turns out to be one of the most fiercely fought and by the full arsenal of campaign strategies, from smearing campaigning to the play of the positive image card.

DPP Heartens PFP Supporters

　　Late into the election, the DPP painted a “grand coalition” government picture, in which non-green folks could also take high positions and exercise great power: serving as premier, for example.

The approach is obviously aimed to reassuring the orange supporters — who had begun to wonder if they should vote for the more likeminded and more winnable Ma so that the DPP would not take over — that their votes can still make a difference for Soong (sending him to the premier seat, for example).

The KMT largely shied from engaging Soong or the PFP in this race both to avoid alienating PFP supporters and to avoid giving Soong the spotlight.

The Chi-Pao (棄保) Effect

But that does not mean KMT will leave Soong unchecked. In a decisive victory for the ruling party, Hualien County Magistrate and Soong's former supporter Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁) recently switched sides to Ma. It is seen as an example of the old tactic known in Taiwan as “Chi-Pao” (棄保, literally meaning ditching and saving), which is the urge of supporters of two fractions from the same political camp to pass the less electable candidate in order to jointly support the winnable one.

In this election, the first combined presidential and lawmaker election, the ditching and saving tactic is more complex and yet more obvious. Instead of ditching the PFP altogether, Fu threw out the slogan of “presidential vote to Ma and legislators-at-large vote to the PFP,” which is in effect asking voters to ditch Soong for the winnable Ma while keeping support for Soong's party.

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