ELECTION 2024/Voters backing TPP's Ko shows distrust of DPP and KMT: Analyst

Kuala Lumpur/Taipei, Jan. 14 (CNA) The 3.69 million votes garnered by Taiwan People's Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) in Saturday's presidential election reflected the "distrust" felt by many young people towards the country's two major parties, a Malaysian analyst said Sunday.

Tan Seng Keat (陳承傑), research manager at the Malaysia-based Merdeka Center for Opinion Research, told CNA that a key takeaway from the outcome of Taiwan's presidential election was how many young voters supported Ko.

The election results showed that ballots cast by young Taiwanese voters had "flowed to" Ko, Tan said, noting that this signaled "the distrust felt by the young generation toward the two traditional big parties in Taiwan."

On the other hand, the loss of youth support should raise the alarm for both the DPP and the KMT, added Tan, who visited Taiwan for the presidential and legislative elections that were held concurrently on Saturday.

Ko received 3.69 million votes, 26.46 percent of the total, leaving him in third behind Vice President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and New Taipei Mayor Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜) of the main opposition Kuomintang (KMT).

Lau Chin Kok (劉振國), a senior member of the Malaysian Chinese Association, a Malaysian political party, made similar observations after seeing the Taiwanese people heading to the polls.

For young people, the TPP has become an alternative to the other two parties because of its "more flexible" campaigning approach, Lau said, adding that the DPP and the KMT had not come up with fresh strategies to appeal to young voters and had relied on traditional methods.

Their comments reflected the pre-election polls, which suggested that Ko's approval rating among voters aged between 20 and 40 was significantly higher than that of Lai and Hou.

Beyond the presence of three candidates naturally diluting each candidate's vote count, Shen Yu-chung (沈有忠), a political science professor at Tunghai University in Taichung, also believed that Ko won the support of many younger voters who supported Tsai in 2020.

Lai received 5.58 million votes in the presidential election, leaving him well short of the 8.17 million received by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) four years ago.

In addition to the presidential contest, the TPP also made significant strides in the legislative elections, obtaining 3.04 million party votes, and securing eight at-large legislative seats.

The TPP only received 1.58 million party votes in 2020.

Ian Chong (莊嘉穎), a political science professor at the National University of Singapore, told CNA that the support garnered by the TPP was a reflection of "dissatisfaction with domestic issues," such as low wages and high home prices, and "has little to do with the People's Republic of China."

"The [Taiwanese] electorate has come to expect pressure from the PRC to be ever-present, and whatever they [voters] do, or don't do, has little effect on what the PRC seeks to do to push Taiwan into accepting Chinese dominance," Chong said.

Even though the DPP has experienced a setback in legislative votes, securing 51 seats in total, 10 less than four years ago, its performance was "much better" than previously expected, according to Chong.

The DPP secured 13 at-large legislative seats this time, after winning around 4.98 million party votes, a slight increase from the 4.81 million votes four years ago.

Chong said he had expected the DPP to get "closer to nine or 10" at-large seats and had thought they would be "very lucky if they could get 12."

Still, taking into account that there will be a new Legislature where no party has an absolute majority, the professor said the DPP would have to make "a lot of effort" to push through different kinds of issues and that the TPP could "potentially have leverage" in a hung Legislature.

It remains too early to say which party the TPP will work with, given that it has not been clear on its stance on many issues, according to the professor.