The southern Taiwanese port city of Kaohsiung is traditionally considered tobe the home of the island's democratic movement, but it is far from certainthat the city's vote will swing the close-run presidential race inSaturday's ballot, RFA's Mandarin service reports.
"The city has a special position in the history of Taiwan's democraticdevelopment," incumbent vice-president Annette Lu told RFA in a recentinterview. "Perhaps democracy is not yet fully achieved in Taiwan today, butit is not far from the last step."
Lu, who is also the vice-presidential running mate of incumbent presidentChen Shui-bian, was arrested for her role in human rights demonstrations inKaohsiung in December 1979 by the ruling Kuomintang National Party (KMT),which brooked no challenge to its power at that time. She was sentenced to12 years' imprisonment.
"We consider that kind of sacrifice worthwhile from all angles because ithad hastened the birth of Taiwan's democracy," Lu said.
Kaohsiung, with its population of 1.5 million, is Taiwan's second-largestcity and the chief city of the feisty and independent-minded south. It hashistorically supported Chen's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which canusually count on 60 percent of the city's vote.
"Southern Taiwanese use their votes to express their grievances toward theKMT in every election because they have no other option," southernprovincial legislator Yan Wenxiang told RFA. "Even though we are notabsolutely sure that Ah-bian [Chen Shui-bian] will be elected, from southernTaiwan's point of view, the white terror of the Nationalist Party stillexists."
Yan said the KMT's record in the south was not simply confined to itsactions in the days of authoritarian rule. "During the last decade of itsrule, the Nationalist Party invested one trillion Taiwan dollars in northernTaiwan's infrastructure while its investment in southern Taiwan was 56billion. This was almost a 20-fold difference. As a result, the attitude ofsouthern Taiwanese toward the Nationalist Party has always been one ofdistrust," Yan said.
Chen's KMT opponent in the race, former premier Lien Chan, together withpopular running mate James Soong, make a reassuring and formidable optionfor those voters who are concerned that the island's first DPP president issteering too close to confrontation with Beijing. The KMT has traditionallysupported eventual reunification with China, though not under communistrule.
Chen's brainchild, a March 20 referendum aimed at using the popular vote to ward off the threat of military action from Beijing, has been condemned by mainland Chinese officials, who see it as dangerously close to a referendumabout whether or not the island should seek formal independence andsovereignty as Taiwan.
Currently, it is ruled under the constitution of the Republic of China, asovereign entity set up on the Chinese mainland by the KMT after the 1911revolution of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, and which has scant recognition in theinternational community. Beijing has threatened military action shouldTaiwan make any move towards independence, including a formal referendum onthe independence issue.
But while Kaohsiung, home to several non-party pro-democracy magazines and astrong pro-independence culture, may still vote against the KMT, othersargue that some southerners feel that the DPP has lost its contact withTaiwan's grass roots.
"The people who were on the side of the DPP in the labor movements of thepast now feel that they are being left out and are only used as a means towield power," said Chang Chao-hsiung, who is a representative of both theKMT and its offshoot People's First Party (PFP) in Kaohsiung.
"In the last decade, DPP has actually not done anything for marginalizedgroups but has instead shown how quickly it has drawn close to the rich. Sothese people have many grievances and disappointments toward them," Changsaid.
Taiwan has been governed separately from the Chinese mainland since 1949,when the KMT fled to the island after losing a civil war to the ChineseCommunists under Mao Zedong. The newly arrived KMT government and itsentourage of mainland Chinese families were seen by many in Taiwan as thelatest in a long line of foreign armies of occupation, causing a fault linebetween mainlanders and Taiwanese which is still visible today.#####