Signs of Change? An Analysis of Taiwan's December 2009 Local Elections
Under special circumstances created by a government decision to partly merge and upgrade six counties and county-level cities to special municipality status, local elections took place on December 5, 2009 in areas covering less than half of Taiwan's population. The results are generally seen as an important, though small, victory for the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The ruling Kuomintang (KMT) (Guomindang), however, has remained in a stable position, while the DPP still has a long way to go towards a comeback.
Faction versus Ideology: Mobilization Strategies in Taiwan's Elections
On 2 December 1989, voters on Taiwan cast ballots to elect national legislators (lifaweiyuan), provincial and city representatives (sheng/shiyiyuari) and county executives (xianzhang). Though the Nationalist Party (KMT) received 59 per cent of the overall vote, the election was widely viewed as a surprising success for the fledgling opposition party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), since the KMT had polled over 70 per cent of the vote in all previous elections. James Soong, Secretary-General of the KMT, announced after an emergency meeting of the shocked KMT leadership, “We calmly accept an upset.”
Arab Uprisings and the Outstanding Return to Democracy: Tunisia as a Model
In the wake of the Middle Eastern crises, the Tunisian case in focus has been doted as a unique phenomenon being that it was the Genesis of the revolution that ultimately spread across the Middle East like wild fire, but has eventually heralded a new dawn as democracy has incidentally returned to the Empire. This literature therefore looks closely at the extent to which the ‘DignityRevolution’ has been instrumental in the Middle East uprisings, which have brought an end to dynastic autocracies. The literature zeros in on the Tunisian uprising which has attracted global concerns, sympathy and has sparked interests in the international arena. The literature finds that the people hold colossal prospect in the uprising and its resultant effect, as it paved the way for the revolutionist to generate, gather and disseminate information on the condition of the entire region to the international community. The people in this context were of utmost importance and played a very crucial role in the creation of awareness, mobilization of protesters and utmost determining the direction of the uprising and also ensuring a speedy return to democratic rule. The paper submits that the role of the people in ensuring that the ruins of the uprising is not left littering around and democracy restored is highly commendable and should be a model for all other Arab countries involved in the revolution.