Taiwan's DPP wins big in latest legislative by-elections

Three out of four ain't bad

Today in Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Chiayi, and Hualien, Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won three of the four elections which were held to replace legislators elected to other positions in last December's 3-in-1 election.

Huang Jen-chu (黃仁杼) beat Apollo Chen (陳學聖) and two "independent" candidates in Taoyuan, Peng Shao-chin (彭紹瑾) beat Cheng Yung-tang (鄭永堂) in Hsinchu, and Chen Ming-wen (陳明文) summarily kicked Lin Te-jui's (林德瑞) ass and handed it to him on a plate (57,451 to 27,138) in Chiayi.

In Hualien, which is known as a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) stronghold, DPP candidate Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) came in second place, but she got an impressiive 40.8% of the votes running against the winner, KMT candidate Wang Ting-sheng (王廷升), and "independent" Shih Sheng-lang (施勝郎).

Here are unofficial numbers given by various TV stations after either victories had been declared or losses conceded in all districts.

5:35 PM results via ETTV (Click to enlarge)	5:37 PM results via CTiTV (Click to enlarge)
5:37 PM results via FTV (Click to enlarge)
5:37 PM results via TVBS (Click to enlarge)	5:39 PM results via SETN (Click to enlarge)

So far, there have been no reports of losing KMT candidates trying to shoot anybody.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the next elections in December 2010 so Taiwan's voters can clean things up some more.

Further reading:
* Here are the vote counts for all candidates via the Liberty Times.

* Download MS Excel spreadsheets (Hanzi) of official results from the Central Election Commission (CEC) web site.

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Front row seats: Taiwan, 台灣, election, 選舉

Cross-posted at It's Not Democracy, It's A Conspiracy!