Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) suffered a bruising defeat in nine-in-one local elections

The results of midterm elections held on November 24 showed that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) easily won mayoral races in 15 counties and cities； while DPP only won 6, down from 13. President Tsai Ing-wen immediately announced that she will step down as DPP chairperson.  Among six major cities, DPP only kept two, Tainan and Taoyuan.  KMT won three ( Taichung, Kaohsiung and New Taipei) and  independent Ko Wen-je, the current mayor, barely beat KMT candidate Ting Shou-chung in Taipei。In the 2014 local elections, the DPP won 13 cities and counties.  The results of 2018 elections almost reversed the previous seats.   The mayor-elected Han Kuo-yu had little experience and knowledge in politics.  During the campaign, he made many big and ridicules promises.  However, he defeated his DPP rival Chen Chi-mai with large margin.  Han created a so-called  ”Han style, wave and stream” which spread around Kaohsiung and other parts of Taiwan in the last two months.  It was speculated that “Han wave” is the KMT’s secret weapon for their success in elections.   New Taipei City mayor-elect Hou You-yi refused to debate, said very little about his policies and had numerous controversy issues regarding his handling of personal properties.  Mayor Ko also refused to debate during the campaign and gave the public a bad impression that he did little in the office in the past four years.   Regardless of their shortcomings, both won the election.   Many political observers tried to figure out what cause the defeat of DPP.  It appears that Tsai Ing-wen pushed “reform” too hard was the number one factor resulted in defeat.  It was very obvious that voters displeased with Tsai administration’ performance.  They complained either doing too much or not enough.   At the end , the majority of voters decided to teach Tsai a lesson and make a change.  KMT Legislator Ko Chih-en said that the elections represented a failure of DPP, but not a victory for KMT.  The KMT must not misread the situation and must continue to reform itself to win back votes from the DPP.   After the elections, the U.S. State Department praised Taiwan on the smooth completion of the latest local nine-in-one government elections.  The Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also praised Taiwan for its local government elections, calling them an example of democracy in action for the Indo-Pacific region.