I ended the last article, on Taiwan's Presidential Election, with the word "stupidity". Little did I realize how prophetic that word would prove. The last week in Taiwan has been anything but boring! On Friday last week (19 March) the president and vice-president, Chen Shui-bian and Annete Lu, were shot while campaigning in the southern city of Tainan, the heartland of their support. Chen was shot in the stomach and Lu in the knee. The would-be assassin, who still has not been apprehended or identified by the police, had used a small caliber pistol and took advantage of the celebratory fireworks going off at the time to mask the noise of the shots. Almost immediately conspiracy theories emerged, suggesting that the whole incident had been staged by Chen's DPP party, and perhaps Chen himself, in an attempt to swing undecided voters and garner a sympathy vote. (In an interesting aside, I discussed this incident with my Friday night adult class and not one of the students thought that a Taiwanese had shot the president. There was unanimous agreement that the shooter was a person from Mainland China.)

Despite the military and police being placed on national security alert and the suspension of campaigning activities after the shooting, the two rival parties, DPP and KMT, together with the election commission decided to continue with voting on Saturday (20 March). The voting process went off well and peacefully. At 4 p.m. the polls closed and almost immediately results began to appear on TV as they came in from around the country. For about two hours Lian Chang (KMT) was consistently in the lead by the slightest margin, indicating that the assassination attempt had had little if any impact on the outcome, but when the figures started to reach the 5 millions, things swung in favour of Chen. And that's how they remained until the election commission finally declared Chen the winner just after 9 p.m. Chen won 50.2% and Lian 49.8% of the vote, a difference of 30 000 votes out of 12 910 000 votes. BUT, there were also 300 000 invalid votes.

The narrow margin of victory, the high number of invalid ballots and the shooting incident the day before, prompted an immediate uproar from the opposition KMT. In the three major cities of Taipei, Taichung and Kaoshiung, KMT supporters flocked into the streets to demonstrate against the result and to demand, at the very least, a recount of the votes. As the week has progressed, these demonstrations have gravitated to an area outside the Presidential Palace in Taipei where demonstrations have been continuous, day and night, since then. When Chen agreed to a recount, the KMT, sensing that he was perhaps too confident that he would win the recount as well, have changed their demand to annulling the election completely and holding it again. As for the assassination attempt, this is hardly mentioned anymore, since the police have all but dismissed the ridiculous and scurrilous suggestion that Chen staged the whole thing.

There is increasing impatience among the general population, and among DPP supporters in particular, about the KMT's allegations and changing goalposts. And, worst of all, it's hitting Taiwanese where it really hurts - in the pocket. The Taipei Stock Exchange has lost about 10% of its value since the beginning of the week. The problem now is how this all gets resolved without anyone losing too much face, or the situation devolving into civil unrest, which is one of China's three conditions for invading Taiwan.

So, who is the winner in all of this? Definitely not Lian Chang. Certainly not Taiwan. Perhaps Chen Shui-bian, although he now has a bullet wound for all his effort. Dare I say it? China?

23 March 2004

Dion Marc Delport

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