TAIWAN ELECTIONS 

Taiwan’s president Ma Ying-jeou won reelection January 14 with nearly 52 percent of the vote.  The KMT standard bearer comfortably beat his closest rival, DPP candidate Tsai Ing-wen who had about 45 percent of the vote.  A third candidate, People First Party nominee James Soong, received less than three percent of the nearly thirteen and a half million votes cast (over 74 percent of all registered voters).  Although the KMT lost some seats in the legislature, it hung on to an absolute majority claiming 64 of the 113 seats.  The DPP secured forty seats and the rest were claimed by smaller parties.

 Ma staked his reelection on his policy of rapprochement with the Mainland, launched soon after his landslide victory in 2008.  Tsai’s campaign targeted voter nervousness that Ma’s policies were undercuttingTaiwan’s sovereignty and reducing Taiwan’s future options.  Although she generally refrained from the stridently pro-Taiwan independence rhetoric that marked former DPP President Chen Shui-bian’s eight years in office, she was hoping to play on that underlying sentiment in her campaign.