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Home Issues Backissues Volume 31, No.1 Parties' Vote-Equalizing Strategies and Their Impacts under a SNTV Electoral System: A Study on Taiwan's Legislative Elections from 1983 to 1995

Parties' Vote-Equalizing Strategies and Their Impacts under a SNTV Electoral System: A Study on Taiwan's Legislative Elections from 1983 to 1995

Shing-Yuan Sheng
1998 / 11
Volume 5, No.2

pp.73-102
Paper

Abstract

This paper examines the major parties' vote-equalizing strate-gies and the impacts of these strategies on candidates' vote-distribu-tion under a SNTV electoral system. From this perspective, this study tries to observe party competition and party politics in Taiwan since the 1980s. Based on a study on legislative elections from 1983 to 1995, this paper shows some research findings. First, the KMT uses the local factions and "responsibility zone system" to mobilize and allocate potential votes to her candidates. Therefore, the vote-distribution of the KMT candidates tends to be concentrated on some parts of the electoral district. On the other hand, the DPP and NP cannot be helped by the local organizations so that the vote shares of their candidates tend to be scattered across the district. Secondly, from a longitudinal perspective, the vote shares of the KMT candidates are getting scattered. This tendency has become evident since the end of the 1980s, when the opposition parties were gradually organized and institutionalized. Thirdly, the influence of the local factions has gradually become weak because of the devel-opment of social economy and the emergence of the opposition par-ties. All of these tendencies show that the KMT's campaign system which depends on vote allocation, local factions and grass-root organizations has become shaky.

Keywords

SNTV electoral system

Vote-equalizing strategy

Legislative elections

Party competition

Local faction

Vote-distribution of candidates

Constituency