Taiwanese voters head to polls in closely-watched election

TAIPEI - Polls opened in Taiwan on Saturday (Jan 11) for a presidential and parliamentary election where the island’s fraught relationship with China is taking centre stage. 

The vote will send ripples far beyond its borders with the two main candidates laying out very different visions for Taiwan’s future – in particular how close the self-ruled island should tack to its giant neighbour. 

Election stations opened their doors nationwide at 8am (0000 GMT) and will close eight hours later. Initial results are expected this evening.

President Tsai Ing-wen of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is seeking a second term in the face of competition from Mr Han Kuo-yu of the main opposition Kuomintang (KMT), and Mr James Soong of the People First Party.

Polls open at 8am and close at 4pm, with a result expected by 10pm.

According to the island's Central Election Committee data, there are about 20 million eligible voters this year, with nearly one in five (19.38 per cent) in their 40s - the biggest group - followed by voters in their 50s at 18.81 per cent.

This election is dubbed the "battle between the generations" by local media, as middle-aged and older voters form the bulk of support for China-friendly Mr Han, 62, who is also Kaohsiung Mayor, and the younger generation has put its support behind independence-leaning Ms Tsai, 63.

Local polls have put Mr Soong, 77, a veteran who is running for president for the fourth time - at last place, with the smallest chance of winning.

The election results may very well be affected by the turnout rate of Taiwan's youth.

In Ms Tsai's first election victory in 2016, only 57.73 per cent of eligible young voters aged between 20 and 39 cast their ballots. In comparison, more than seven in 10 voters in their 40s and 50s turned up at the polls.

But this year, the "dried mango" threat may push younger voters to turn up and vote.

Mangguogan, or "dried mango" is a popular snack among Taiwanese, but sounds like and is used politically to mean "wangguogan" or "sense of a nation's doom" or, to Taiwanese, "end of Taiwan as we know it".

It is something Taiwan's youth have reported feeling if the day comes when China's One Country, Two Systems policy is imposed on the island.

In a final push to woo voters, the two main parties KMT and DPP held massive rallies on Thursday and Friday nights respectively as huge crowds gathered in a dazzling sea of flags - green and pink for Ms Tsai, red and blue for Mr Han.

"This election will determine if Taiwanese people can bravely choose democracy and freedom despite pressure from China," Ms Tsai told supporters.

Mr Han, on the other hand, told his crowd it was time to mend ties with Beijing.

"Interactions between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait have become frosty and are at their lowest ebb," he said.

Coming on the back of more than six months of unrest in Hong Kong, the elections in Taiwan are receiving more attention than usual from foreign media, researchers and scholars because of the Tsai administration's tense relationship with China.

There were more than 113 foreign news organisations covering the elections and 13 groups of foreign election observation groups in Taiwan as of Friday.

The number of overseas Taiwanese returning to vote has doubled since the last elections.

This year, 5,328 Taiwanese living overseas applied to vote, compared with the 2,425 in 2016. Taiwan does not accept absentee ballots.

Mr Liu Feng-yi, a PhD candidate studying social welfare at Rutgers University, amassed a team of overseas Taiwanese in New York and neighbouring cities to produce a series of videos calling on fellow overseas Taiwanese to go home and vote.

"I am doing this to defend Taiwan's democracy," he said.

Aside from the president and vice-president, voters are also voting for legislators, as well as casting a "political party vote" that parties can use to gain at-large legislature seats according to the percentage of party votes they receive.

This year, there are 19 parties vying for the at-large seats, a record high in Taiwan's history of legislature elections, something that the DPP and KMT have feared would split up the party votes that traditionally went to the two larger parties.

With the political party vote, many young people have said that they are opting to vote for smaller, newer parties that have younger at-large candidates that will bring balance to the largely middle-aged legislature, and also break the two major parties' control of the legislature.

This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.