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Home Issues Backissues Volume 31, No.1 The Vote Distribution of the Taiwan Solidarity Union: An Analysis of the 2001 Legislative Election Records

The Vote Distribution of the Taiwan Solidarity Union: An Analysis of the 2001 Legislative Election Records

Wei-Li Wu and Yung-Tai Hung
2005 / 11
Volume 12, No.2

pp.189-212
10.6612/tjes.2005.12.02.189-212
Paper

Abstract

Is it the ideology affiliated with ex-president Lee Teng-hui or the traditional local political factions that consist of the bases of Taiwan Solidarity Union's support? Our study finds that the later plays more important role than the former does. The study derives three indicators using village vote counts from the 2001 and some from 1995 and 1998 legislative election records, the first. is a Gini-coefficient type indicator showing the extent of candidate's vote dispersion pattern; the second uses votes from only a portion of total villages, from top down 10%, 20% and from bottom up 10%, 20% to show the distribution of candidate's strength and weakness; the third uses the overlapping percentage of candidate's top 5% vote-getting villages during 1995, 1998 and 2001 elections to examine candidate's steady strength before and after the Lee Teng-hui affiliation. The article also discusses the campaign strategies employed by the TSU for maximizing her political strength under the SNTV electoral system in Taiwan.

Keywords

legislative election

Taiwan Solidarity Union

vote dispersion indicator

political map