lost all three legislative seats up for grabs in last Saturday's by-elections, marking the KMT's fifth electoral setback since President Ma Ying-jeou's inauguration in May 2008. Although the latest by-elections carried little national significance as they only involved three constituencies, the results are still worth attention because they seem to signal the start of a domino effect. Several reasons contributed to the KMT-led 'pan-blue camp's' defeat: poor governance, improper nomination strategies and low voter turnout. As a matter of fact, the KMT need not feel especially despondent for the setbacks and the opposition Democratic Progressive Party should not trumpet its victory because it is not uncommon in democratic countries that voters use their ballots to either punish or reward a political party. What deserves attention is local voters' growing self-awareness. The increase in the number of self-aware voters will gradually make vote-buying tactics ineffective and the number of radical voters decline. As a result, the so-called 'hardcore' supporters of a specific political camp will gradually dwindle. All of Saturday's by-elections took place in traditional strongholds of the 'pan-blue camp.' The three KMT candidates' failures could be an indication of the breakdown of the hardcore support myth. Despite the defeat, the KMT still deserves some praise for its less-than-usual use of vote-buying tactics in the latest elections and its insistence on nominating candidates with clean images rather than compromising with local political factions to nominate controversial hopefuls with shady criminal links. 