Taipei, Nov. 29 (CNA) The regional divide between northern and southern Taiwan could be clearly seen in the Nov. 27 elections for five municipalities, which could also cause a so-called "Yeltsin effect, " scholars at a forum said Monday.
The north-south divide remains, as northern Taiwan leans toward the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) while the main opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) receives strong support from the south, said Nathan F. Batto, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica who has been observing Taiwan elections for almost 20 years.
The election results show that "each side won races on its own turf... and that central Taiwan is the battleground, " Batto said in the forum organized by the Institute for National Policy Research (INPR) to examine policy directions after the five municipal elections.
The KMT posted big wins in the northern cities of Taipei and Xinbei and narrowly won the central city of Taichung by about 2 percentage points, while the DPP swept the two southern cities of Tainan and Kaohsiung.
The results are a clear victory for the KMT, which won three of the five seats, but statistics show that the DPP had above-average performance in Taipei, Xinbei and Taichung compared to in the past, Batto said, adding that "the surge toward the KMT in 2008 is gone."
The expanded or upgraded five municipalities could bring a so-called "Boris Yeltsin effect, " said Antonio Chiang, a political commentator who served as deputy secretary-general of the National Security Council from 2000-2004, because the five cities will have much greater resources, funding and power that the country's other smaller cities and counties.
The "Yeltsin effect" was first seen when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 after Boris Yeltsin seized power in the aftermath of a failed coup that had attempted to topple reform-minded Mikhail Gorbachev.
When he became the first popularly elected president of Russia later that year, Yeltsin declared that Russian law took precedence over the law of the Soviet Union and that Russia enjoyed absolute sovereignty and self-determination, relegating the other countries of the former Soviet Union to far lesser status.
"These elected mayors will probably have stronger mandates than Cabinet ministers and could have their own China policies and their own "cabinets, " which means we're looking at a potential clash between local and central governments, " Chiang said.
The effect could cause internal strife for both the KMT and the DPP, Chiang said.
The veteran commentator said that the DPP is going through a transformation period under Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen and "has become very different from the Chen Shui-bian era, " referring to the former president who doubled as DPP chairman at one point.
The DPP is waiting for the new generation to take over after this particular election -- the party's first election in 10 years without Chen's direct or indirect impact, he said.
At the same time, the KMT's local election machine appeared to be cracking, said INPR President Tien Hung-mao, a former foreign minister. The party has long been known for its ability to mobilize voters at the grassroots level.
This time around, though, the KMT had trouble gaining support from local factions in central and southern regions, he pointed out. (By Chris Wang) ENDITEM/J