A Watershed Moment for Democracy: Taiwan’s 2018 Elections and Referendum

The elections and referendum of November 24, 2018 is yet another turning point on Taiwan’s road to liberal democracy. For supporters of progressive values and modernity, Taiwan’s electorate seems to have voted to take a turn for the worse and abandon the gains made by Taiwan’s civil society since the Sunflower Movement four years ago.

Not only did this election mark the end of the Sunflower Movement as the main driving force for political discourse in Taiwan, the results of this election are also an affirmation of Taiwan’s patriarchy and conservatism which, despite the hard work of activists and citizens who challenge the status quo, are still very alive and well within Taiwan’s traditional East Asian society.

The results on Saturday calls to mind the backlash by conservative anti-democracy forces against the current globalized world order: the rise of Donald Trump and the resurgence of white supremacy in the United States against pluralism, the vote by the UK to leave the European project, and radical right-wing politicians coming into power. These movements formed on the foundations of tribalism, resentment and toxic nationalism.

The end of the Sunflower Movement

In this election, a new generation of young first-time candidates competed for seats on city councils throughout Taiwan. Many of these candidates were student leaders during the Sunflower Movement in 2014. Since then, key participants of the movement, as well as ambitious, like-minded youth, have taken their newfound political energy and channeled it into various ways to engage with public affairs, including running for office themselves.

In particular, they formed the crux of the newer, smaller parties to come on the political scene since 2014: the New Power Party, the Social Democratic Party, and the Taiwan Radical Wings. Overall, in the local council races they won 2.49%, 0.29% and 0.56% of the total national vote respectively, translating to 16, 1, and 0 seats overall.

Meanwhile, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) went from 291 seats to 238, while the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) grew from 386 to 394 seats. The KMT grew from six of the 22 local governor and mayor seats to 15, while the DPP dropped from 13 to six.

From the Sunflower Movement onwards leading up to the 2016 national elections, Taiwan’s two-party system, divided by national identity and attitude towards China, looked like it may reshuffle along the divide between economic policies, or even evolve into a multiparty system. The then-ruling KMT was badly beaten by the DPP as expected.

But as our contributor Courtney Donovan Smith asked, “who will stand against the DPP?” In the piece, Smith commented: “There are a lot of uncertainties about the form a new opposition would take. Would it be one party, or a coalition of smaller ones? Would it be led by a charismatic leader or a visionary, or would it be more broad-based movement of many pushing for change?” So far, it seems that the KMT still holds as the sole default opposition party to the DPP.

Moreover, the passion of the Sunflower Movement is fading into memory, and enough time has passed for new political entrants to be evaluated on more recent events. By the next election in 2020, having experience in the Sunflower Movement will not carry the same political stamp of approval. Aspiring young politicians will have to prove themselves by resolving today’s political controversies.

The Sunflower Movement was about changing the system itself, challenging not only the political process as flawed, but also how politics in Taiwan had been “hijacked” by the older generation in both major parties, especially in the KMT. More fundamentally, supporters of the movement feared that Taiwan’s economy will be pulled so close to China, as the KMT proposed, that China would be able to directly manipulate Taiwan’s democratic process and even annex Taiwan outright. The movement drove the KMT out of power in 2016, and inspired a desire for more direct democracy that eventually led to legislation that made referendums much easier to hold and pass.

Now, four years after the Sunflower Movement, voters in Taiwan brought back the same KMT that is still campaigning for closer ties with China as the cure for Taiwan’s economy. And the voters took advantage of the newfound powers of direct democracy, and approved all the ballot measures limiting basic human rights to the LGBTQ minority.

Taiwan’s patriarchy and conservatism

The results of the 10 ballot measures in Taiwan is a resounding approval for traditional values and patriarchy. Out of the 10 propositions, the three anti-LGBTQ propositions (a separate law for civil unions, a ban on sex education, and affirming marriage as between a man and a woman) passed easily. Other measures that passed include allowing nuclear power to continue beyond 2025 and a limit on coal power. Meanwhile, voters voted down all pro-LGBTQ propositions and a request to change Taiwan’s Olympic team name from “Chinese Taipei” to “Taiwan.”

In the history of Taiwan’s democracy, these ballot measures will be remembered as the first referendums to ever pass in Taiwan. This was made possible largely by advocates for more direct democracy in Taiwan, yet the results could not be further from what the same advocates for democracy would have preferred to see.

Taiwan’s election and referendums echo the challenges that democracy faces all around the world. The current model of liberal democratic governance is built on supplanting family, kin and religious identities with a civic, national identity. As democratic societies around the world move towards globalization, we are seeing the system strained on the one hand by globalized corporate interests that have consolidated power and wealth across national borders, and on the other hand by the resurgence of tribal and resentful instincts that civic identities could not completely replace.

These two inherent fault lines in the current world order combine to form a chimera that is anti-intellectual, anti-elite, and ultimately anti-liberal democracy, leading to a Trump-like candidate like Han Kuo-yu winning in Kaohsiung, as well as the complete defeat of progressive values in the referendums.

Hope

Understandably, many progressively minded people who care about Taiwan are disappointed right now. I, too, am one of those people. In addition to the Sunflower Movement coming to pass and Taiwan’s conservatism showing its full force, there is the current administration failing to deliver on what voters expectations, and the specter of Chinese manipulation of the media and the election. Is there any hope going forward?

I believe there is still value in having the democratic experiment of referendums in Taiwan. Democratic procedures, even constitutional power arrangements, are still open to debate in Taiwan, and the more we have experience with them the more we can refine them.

The results also shine a light on some harsh realities in Taiwan. Despite the attention around same-sex marriage after the constitutional court ruling last year and excitement over the referendum, the electorate still overwhelmingly voted against same-sex marriage. This will allow all of us to know how much work there is still to be done in moving Taiwan towards modernity—only by coming to terms with the scale of the challenge can we tackle it head on.

The political landscape in Taiwan is still constantly evolving, and its young democracy is still being tested in a crucible made up of East Asian patriarchy, the threat of forceful annexation by China, shifting demographics, and globalization. The ruling party, the DPP, rode a wave to victory two years ago, and got buried in another wave this past weekend. New entrants are continuing to prove their worth and challenge the existing order. The world around Taiwan keeps moving towards uncharted political waters.

The story does not end here, the story cannot end here.