2012 Taiwanese presidential election

2012 Taiwanese presidential election

14 January 2012 (2012-01-14)
Registered	18,086,455
Turnout	74.38% 1.95 pp
Nominee Ma Ying-jeou Tsai Ing-wen Party Kuomintang DPP Running mate Wu Den-yih Su Jia-chyuan Popular vote 6,891,139 6,093,578 Percentage 51.60% 45.63%
Vote lead by township/city or district
President before election Ma Ying-jeou Kuomintang Elected President Ma Ying-jeou Kuomintang

2012 Taiwanese presidential election
Traditional Chinese	中華民國第十三任總統、副總統選舉
Transcriptions

The 13th President and Vice President election of the Republic of China (Chinese: 中華民國第十三任總統、副總統選舉) was held on 14 January 2012. The election was held concurrently with legislative elections. It was the fifth direct election for the President of the Republic of China. Prior to 1996, the President was elected by the ROC's National Assembly and not directly by the people.

Incumbent Ma Ying-jeou was re-elected as President with 51.6% of the vote. DPP challenger Tsai Ing-wen resigned her post as chairperson of the DPP following her election defeat.

Background

The Kuomintang (KMT or Chinese Nationalist Party) ticket won a landslide victory in 2008 over the incumbent Democratic Progressive Party, with a 2.2 million vote margin on 58% of the valid votes.

The administration of Ma Ying-jeou has been friendlier in policy towards the People's Republic of China and also signed the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), a preferential trade agreement between the governments of the PRC and the ROC.

The Democratic Progressive Party was hit hard with former president Chen Shui-bian's corruption revelations, but new chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen rebuilt the party, leading to a series of victories in legislative by-elections and local elections.

One big election topic appears to be the "1992 consensus", a term describing the declared outcome of a meeting in 1992 between the semi-official representatives of mainland China and Taiwan. The KMT agrees that this consensus should be the basis for negotiations with the PRC and supports it during the election, while the DPP believes that no such consensus was reached and that as a policy it is equivalent to the One-China principle, which the DPP opposes. Instead, the DPP has advocated that a "Taiwan consensus" be produced in a democratic way, by the legislature and a referendum of the people of Taiwan.

Candidates

As determined by a random draw, the DPP's Tsai-Su ticket was listed first on Election Day ballots; the incumbent KMT's Ma-Wu ticket was listed second; and the People First Party (PFP)'s Soong-Lin ticket, third.

Democratic Progressive Party

Main article: 2011 Democratic Progressive Party presidential primary

Incumbent chairperson Tsai Ing-wen was the DPP nominee. She was designated the party’s candidate in April 2011 following a primary by opinion polls. Candidates for the DPP primary were Tsai, former premier Su Tseng-chang and former chairman Hsu Hsin-liang. Former Vice President Annette Lu Hsiu-lien announced her intention to run but withdrew. On 9 September 2012 candidate Tsai chose DPP secretary-general Su Jia-chyuan as her running mate.

Democratic Progressive nominees

2012 Democratic Progressive ticket
Tsai Ing-wen	Su Jia-chyuan
for President	for Vice President
Vice President of the Executive Yuan (2006–2007)	Minister of the Council of Agriculture (2006–2008)

Democratic Progressive candidates

Su Tseng-chang	Hsu Hsin-liang
Magistrate of Taipei County (1997–2004)	Magistrate of Taoyuan County (1977–1979)
41.15% poll rating	12.21% poll rating

Kuomintang

Incumbent President Ma Ying-jeou was standing for re-election. There were no challengers within the party, so no primary was necessary.

Vice President Vincent Siew chose not to run for a second term, and on 19 June 2011 President Ma selected Premier Wu Den-yih as his running mate.

Ma's campaign was run by King Pu-tsung, a former party Secretary-General.

Kuomintang nominees

Ma Ying-jeou and Wu Den-yih election rally in Banqiao District, New Taipei.

2012 Kuomintang ticket
Ma Ying-jeou	Wu Den-yih
for President	for Vice President
Mayor of Taipei (1998–2006)	President of the Executive Yuan (2009–2012)

People First Party

PFP chairman James Soong Chu-yu launched the party's first-ever Presidential bid on 20 September 2011. Soong had stated, however, that his candidacy is contingent on the success of a nationwide million signature drive. He has vowed to run and keep his candidacy active through the election if his campaign garners one million signatures throughout Taiwan.

Soong chose National Taiwan University professor emeritus Lin Ruey-shiung, a career scientist and academic with no political experience, to be his running mate.

Soong contended that the Taiwanese people desire a third choice outside the two main parties (KMT and DPP), despite concerns that his decision may split the Pan-Blue coalition vote to hand victory to the Pan-Green candidate as may have happened in the 2000 Presidential election.

People First nominees

2012 People First ticket
James Soong	Lin Ruey-shiung
for President	for Vice President
Governor of Taiwan Province (1993–1998)	Dean of the National Taiwan University Medical School (1993–1996)

Polls

Main article: Opinion polling for the 2012 Taiwanese presidential election

After initially trailing, Ma started to pick up the lead, without Soong as a candidate, after September, 2011 in most opinion polls. However, Tsai benefited from the debates in the later stages.

Result

Voting took place between 8:00 and 16:00 local time at 14,806 polling stations. After Ma's re-election, he announced that his victory had vindicated his policies in regards to cross-strait relations. Tsai conceded the election and resigned from her position as head of the DPP. Turnout was reported to be over 74%.

Ma Ying-jeou and Wu Den-yih were inaugurated as the President and Vice President of Taiwan respectively at the Presidential Office Building on 20 May 2012.

 Summary of the 2012 Taiwanese presidential election results

Party		Candidate		Votes	Percentage
		President	Vice president
	Kuomintang	Ma Ying-jeou	Wu Den-yih	6,891,139	51.60%
	Democratic Progressive Party	Tsai Ing-wen	Su Jia-chyuan	6,093,578	45.63%
	People First Party	James Soong	Lin Ruey-shiung	369,588	2.77%
Valid votes				13,354,305	99.27%
Invalid and blank votes				97,711	0.73%
Total votes				13,452,016	100%
Eligible voters and turnout				18,086,455	74.38%

Details

Result by cities and counties

City/County	Number of voters	Tsai		Ma		Soong		Invalid	Participation rate	Margin
		Count	%	Count	%	Count	%
Taipei City	2,102,664	634,565	39.54%	928,717	57.87%	41,448	2.58%	9,669	76.78%	294,152
New Taipei City	3,074,849	1,007,551	43.46%	1,245,673	53.73%	65,269	2.81%	15,215	75.90%	238,122
Taoyuan City	1,506,311	445,308	39.85%	639,151	57.20%	32,927	2.95%	7,610	74.69%	193,843
Taichung City	2,018,158	678,736	44.68%	792,334	52.16%	48,030	3.16%	9,953	75.76%	113,598
Tainan City	1,485,047	631,232	57.72%	435,274	39.80%	27,066	2.48%	8,090	74.18%	195,958
Kaohsiung City	2,192,005	883,158	53.42%	730,461	44.19%	39,469	2.39%	10,944	75.91%	152,697
Yilan	358,059	135,156	52.53%	115,496	44.89%	6,652	2.58%	2,437	72.54%	19,660
Hsinchu County	384,261	89,741	30.93%	190,797	65.76%	9,599	3.31%	2,176	76.07%	101,056
Miaoli County	436,219	107,164	33.18%	206,200	63.85%	9,597	2.97%	2,600	74.63%	99,036
Changhua County	1,005,714	340,069	46.49%	369,968	50.58%	21,403	2.93%	7,367	73.46%	29,899
Nantou	411,482	123,077	42.37%	158,703	54.63%	8,726	3.00%	2,165	71.13%	35,626
Yunlin	563,034	214,141	55.81%	159,891	41.67%	9,662	2.51%	4,348	68.92%	54,250
Chiayi County	431,588	181,463	58.58%	120,946	39.04%	7,364	2.38%	3,052	72.48%	60,517
Pingtung County	684,517	271,722	55.13%	211,571	42.93%	9,562	1.94%	4,571	72.67%	60,151
Taitung County	178,938	33,417	30.50%	72,823	66.47%	3,313	3.02%	1,019	61.79%	39,406
Hualien County	263,888	43,845	25.94%	118,815	70.30%	6,359	3.76%	1,570	64.64%	74,970
Penghu County	77,817	20,717	45.65%	22,579	49.75%	2,082	4.58%	543	59.01%	1,862
Keelung	302,139	79,562	36.77%	128,294	59.29%	8,533	3.94%	1,414	72.09%	48,732
Hsinchu City	312,118	92,632	39.49%	134,728	57.43%	7,216	3.08%	1,628	75.68%	42,096
Chiayi City	205,711	76,711	51.04%	69,535	46.27%	4,042	2.69%	973	73.53%	7,176
Kinmen County	83,949	3,193	8.21%	34,676	89.23%	990	2.54%	316	46.67%	31,483
Lienchiang County (Matsu Islands)	7,987	418	8.03%	4,507	86.60%	279	5.36%	51	65.79%	4,089
Note： Winners are marked in red.

Reactions

• PRC – The State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office stated Ma's reelection proved the developments in cross-strait relations during his term is "the correct path that has won the support of the majority of the Taiwanese compatriots."
• Hong Kong – Chief Executive candidate Henry Tang said the result reflects that Taiwanese people approve Ma's cross-strait policies, and expressed his wishes for peaceful and stable situation for economic development.
• Singapore – Even before the confirmation of the result, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement congratulating Ma saying: "Singapore and Taiwan enjoy a close and friendly relationship which goes back many years [and that] they will continue to strengthen this relationship based on Singapore's "One China" policy." It added by wishing "all the parties success in working towards greater peace and prosperity, [sic] and securing the well-being of the future generations."
• United States – The White House issued a statement congratulating Ma and added it congratulates "the people of Taiwan on the successful conduct of their presidential and legislative elections;" also adding: "We hope the impressive efforts that both sides have undertaken in recent years to build cross-strait ties continue."

See also

• Elections in Taiwan

External links

• 2012 Presidential Election Press Kit, Government Information Office, Executive Yuan

Candidate Information

• Ma Ying-jeou
• Tsai Ing-wen
• Su Tseng-chang
• Annette Lu Hsiu-lien