Saturday, December 22, 2007

Academic predicts landslide win for KMT in legislative elections

Taipei, Dec. 22 (CNA) A vote simulation showed that the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) is expected to post a landslide victory in the Jan. 12 legislative elections, grabbing almost two-thirds of the 113 seats, a researcher said Saturday.

Lin Jih-wen, a researcher at Academia Sinica, said during the annual Taipei-Seoul Forum held in Taipei that according to his calculations, the KMT is expected to win 72 seats in the elections, while the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is expected to win 38 seats.

Calculating the vote share in the township within the 73 single-member districts, Lin concluded that the DPP won't be able to win more than 25 district-based seats, adding that it may win 13 of the at-large seats to be allotted to the various political parties based on the percentage of the total vote they each garner. Only political parties that manage to win at least 5 percent of the total vote cast in the polls will be eligible to secure at-large seats.

The KMT is likely to grab 72 seats, while other parties will win the rest, he said.

A "single-member constituency, two votes" system will be used for the first time in Taiwan's election history, with 73 of the 113 legislators to be chosen from the districts, 34 to be selected in a nationwide district, and six chosen from indigenous districts.

Lin predicted that the DPP's failure in the legislative elections will have an impact on the party's campaigning strategy, forcing it to resort to Taiwanese consciousness to balance the tilt in the ensuing presidential election.

As for the DPP-initiated referendum on retrieving the KMT's "ill-gotten" assets, Lin said the DPP doesn't care whether it is passed. The main objective of the referendum, he said, is to boost the voter turnout rate in certain districts for the party to win more at-large seats.

"Most people care about whether vote-buying will be reduced in this election. My observation is, unfortunately, the answer is no, " he said.