Comparing ‘waves’ as Taipei race nears end

On Tuesday last week, Lin Chien-cheng (林健正), a retired National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University professor, wrote on Facebook comparing the “Han wave” (韓流) that led to now-Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu’s (韓國瑜) surprise 2018 Kaohsiung mayoral victory to the “Ocean wave” (洋流) of support for Legislator Puma Shen’s (沈伯洋) campaign as the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Taipei mayoral candidate.

Lin said not to underestimate the power of momentum.

The 1998 Taipei mayoral election involving two men who went on to be president seemed to show that it is electoral forces beneath the surface of the waves that matter most.

A poll released on Sept. 22 by the Taipei Trust in Democracy Association put support for Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) at 41.7 percent as he seeks a second term and Shen at 40.5 percent, a difference of just 1.2 percentage points. However, neither a single poll nor enthusiastic crowds at campaign events necessarily predict the election’s outcome.

The “Ocean wave” — which Shen’s campaign team refers to as the “Taipei Current” in English — has generated several notable moments. When Shen’s campaign headquarters opened on Oct. 4, television host and writer Kevin Tsai (蔡康永) was photographed at the event. Amid backlash, including from China, Tsai said he attended to “see what it was like.”

On the same day, a vendor in Taipei’s Ximending (西門町) area began selling cakes using molds that made them in the Chinese characters for: “Your mayor, Puma Shen.” The vendor said that a friend received a call from the stall’s landlord asking that sales of the Shen-themed cakes stop. It was unclear whether anyone else prompted the landlord’s request.

The developments reflect a level of electoral momentum, but they still cannot predict the election’s outcome.

The 1998 Taipei mayoral election offers an instructive perspective. Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) won the mayoralty in 1994 with 43.67 percent of the vote and was seeking re-election. Despite his vote share rising to 45.91 percent four years later, he nevertheless lost to Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who secured 51.13 percent.

National Chengchi University conducted studies that indicated that public satisfaction with Chen’s administration was typically above 70 percent during his tenure, yet he still fell short.

Polling and research suggest that, at the time, party identification, views on unification versus independence and identification as being Chinese or Taiwanese were all associated with split-ticket voting, a reminder that a candidate winning public approval and voters ultimately casting their ballots for them are two different things.

That is not to say 1998 is destined to repeat itself next month. Nearly three decades have passed, Taipei’s population, generations and political identities have changed, and the conclusions drawn from in 1998 cannot necessarily be applied to the present. The focus should be on how voters assess the candidates and whether Shen’s and Chiang’s ability to govern can translate into tangible improvements in housing, transportation, long-term care, accessibility, education and public infrastructure.

In 2018, Han’s mass rallies translated into victory, but not when he ran in the 2020 presidential election. Meanwhile, Taipei’s 1998 mayoral race showed that an administration’s high approval ratings do not guarantee re-election. What needs watching is not just how high a wave rises, but what electoral structures lie below.

Hopefully, Taipei residents see through the noise and carefully consider each candidate’s abilities, policies and performance. They should each use their own judgement to choose the person best equipped to govern.