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Lai Ching-te, the presidential candidate of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive party, pulled ahead of his two rivals in the country’s pivotal election on Saturday night, suggesting voters ignored China’s warnings against the man it calls a dangerous separatist.
With about 80 per cent of votes counted, Lai had won 41 per cent, according to the Central Election Commission. Hou Yu-ih from the Kuomintang, the largest opposition party, had 33.2 per cent of the vote and Ko Wen-je from the smaller Taiwan People’s party had attracted 25.8 per cent.
Hou and Ko conceded defeat at their campaign headquarters at 8pm, giving the DPP a third straight term in power, the first time any party has achieved the feat since Taiwan started holding direct and free presidential elections in 1996.
Although preliminary figures suggested that the DPP could lose its parliamentary majority, it was still on track to win a higher share of votes for its nationwide party list than expected.
The result will probably come as a disappointment for the Chinese Communist party, and could drive Beijing to ratchet up pressure on its democratic neighbour.
China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and refuses to renounce the use of force to bring it under its control if the country rejects unification indefinitely. It had called the election a choice between war and peace and called on the Taiwanese to make the “right choice”.
On the eve of the polls, the People’s Liberation Army warned that it “remains on high alert at all times [to] smash ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist plots in any form”.
Beijing cut all communication with Taiwan’s government after the DPP came to power in 2016 because the party refused to say the island was part of China. The KMT sees Taiwan as part of a broader Chinese nation but disagrees with the Chinese Communist party over which state represents it.
Ko Wen-je, who appealed to mostly young swing voters with promises of tax cuts, higher health and social spending and increasing government transparency, largely avoided talking about China in great detail.
The Central Election Commission’s preliminary data showed that the DPP won 36.6 per cent of the legislative party list vote, more than 3 percentage points higher than in 2020, when Tsai Ing-wen won re-election with a record margin.
“The party list vote is a referendum of people’s real support for the respective parties,” said Lev Nachman, a political scientist at National Chengchi University in Taipei. “According to these numbers, we have a much stronger showing for the DPP than expected.”
However, analysts said Lai faced a difficult term. He will probably lead the first minority government, raising the spectre of frequent deadlock over vital issues such as strengthening Taiwan’s defences to deter Chinese aggression.