Taiwan's Green Parties: Alternative Politics in Taiwan 9780367650315, 9781003127505

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Taiwan’s Green Parties

Examining the Green Party Taiwan (GPT) since its establishment through the aftermath of the most recent national elections in January 2020, this book focuses on Taiwan’s most important movement party over the last two and a half decades. Despite its limited electoral impact, its leaders have played a critical role in a range of social movements, including anti-nuclear and LGBT rights campaigns. Plotting the party’s evolution in electoral politics as well as its engagement with the global green movement, this volume analyses key patterns of party change in electoral campaign appeals, organisation and its human face. The second half of the volume concentrates on explaining both the party’s electoral impact and why the party has adjusted ideologically and organisationally over time. Based on a wide range of material collected, including focus groups, interviews and political communication data, the research relies heavily on analysis of campaign material and the voices of party activists and also considers other Green Parties, such as the splinter Trees Party and GPT-Social Democratic Alliance. Applying a wide range of theoretical frameworks to plot and explain small party development, this book will appeal both to students and scholars of Taiwan’s politics and civil society but also to readers with an interest in small parties and particularly environmental parties and movements. Dafydd Fell is Reader in Comparative Politics with special reference to Taiwan at SOAS University of London. He is also Director of the SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies. His first publication was Party Politics in Taiwan (Routledge, 2005), which analysed party change in the first 15 years of multi-party competition. He also authored Government and Politics in Taiwan (Routledge, 2011) and co-edited Migration to and from Taiwan (Routledge, 2013); Social Movements in Taiwan Under Ma Ying-jeou was published in 2017. His most recent co-edited book was Taiwan Studies Revisited, published in 2019.

Routledge Research on Taiwan Series Series Editor: Dafydd Fell SOAS, UK

The Routledge Research on Taiwan Series seeks to publish quality research on all aspects of Taiwan studies. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the books will cover topics such as politics, economic development, culture, society, anthropology and history. This new book series will include the best possible scholarship from the social sciences and the humanities and welcomes submissions from established authors in the field as well as from younger authors. In addition to research monographs and edited volumes, general works or textbooks with a broader appeal will be considered. The Series is advised by an international Editorial Board and edited by Dafydd Fell of the Centre of Taiwan Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies. 31 Taiwan Studies Revisited Dafydd Fell and Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao 32 Cross-Strait Relations Since 2016 The End of the Illusion J. Michael Cole 33 Deliberative Democracy in Taiwan A Deliberative Systems Perspective Mei-Fang Fan 34 Literary Representations of “Mainlanders” in Taiwan Becoming Sinophone Phyllis Yu-ting Huang 35 Taiwan’s Green Parties Alternative Politics in Taiwan Dafydd Fell For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/RoutledgeResearch-on-Taiwan-Series/book-series/RRTAIWAN

Taiwan’s Green Parties Alternative Politics in Taiwan Dafydd Fell

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Dafydd Fell The right of Dafydd Fell to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-65031-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-12750-5 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

List of figuresvii List of tablesviii Acknowledgementsix List of abbreviationsx Note on Romanisationxi PART I

Introduction, research questions and formation

1

  1 Taiwan’s Green Parties: alternative politics in Taiwan

3

  2 Frameworks and data for analysing Taiwan’s Green Parties

10

  3 Beautiful accidents: the formation of Taiwan’s Green Parties

29

PART II

The changing impact and human face of the Green Parties

45

  4 The impact of the Green Parties in Taiwan: elections, media and the international

47

  5 Who are the GPT? Leaders, candidates and supporters

80

PART III

The first decade: 1996–2005

111

  6 The GPT’s first election in 1996: Professor Kao catching missiles

113

  7 Almost breaking through in 1998: is it OK to frequent sexual nightclubs?

124

  8 Understanding the GPT’s quiet period: 1999–2005

136

vi  Contents PART IV

The Pan Han-sheng era: 2006–2012

147

  9 Returning to elections between 2006 and 2009: the wish of the Ladybird, Red–Green Alliance and Treetop Protest

149

10 The struggle to become a relevant party: the 2010 and 2012 campaigns

164

PART V

The Lee Ken-cheng era: 2013–2016

187

11 Reforms and the local breakthroughs and setbacks of 2014: unfinished progress

189

12 The 2016 GPT SDP Alliance’s failed national breakthrough: the lunchboxes and teenage idol election

207

PART VI

The Wang Hau-yu era: 2016–2020

235

13 A new model of local election campaigning in 2018: winning or selling its soul?

237

14 The Teng Hui-wen or Wang Hau-yu GPT campaigns in 2020

256

PART VII

Conclusion

275

15 Conclusion: the aftermath, rebranding, returning to research questions and practical lessons

277

Index

290

Figures

  4.1 Newspaper Reports Mentioning GPT in United Daily News and Taipei Times 14.1 GPT Survey Support Levels 2016–2020

58 265

Tables

4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 4.16 4.17 4.18 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 14.1

Vote Shares in National Parliamentary (Legislative Yuan and National Assembly) Elections Seat Shares in National Parliamentary (Legislative Yuan and National Assembly) Elections City and County Council Seat Shares and Seat Numbers GPT Electoral Participation in National Level Elections Yunlin County National Assembly District 1 in 1996 Taipei City Council District 6 in 1998 2008 Legislative Yuan Party List Results Taipei City Legislative By-Election District 6 in 2009 New Taipei City Council District 1 in 2010 2012 Legislative Yuan Party List Results Taipei City Legislative Yuan District 7 in 2012 Taoyuan City Council District 7 in 2014 Hsinchu County Council District 8 in 2014 New Taipei City Council District 1 in 2014 2016 Pre-election Party List Surveys 2016 Legislative Yuan Party List Results Hsinchu County Council District 8 in 2018 Hsinchu City Council District 1 in 2018 Background of GPT Convenors Profile of GPT Candidates in National and Local Elections GPT Vote Shares in Parliamentary Elections by Administrative Districts: 2008–2020 Issues That Led Supporters to Support the GPT SDP Alliance 2020 Legislative Yuan Party List Results

48 48 49 51 52 56 61 63 65 66 67 68 69 70 72 73 76 77 81 83 102 106 258

Acknowledgements

There are so many people that have helped me over the past eight years, it is hard to know where to start. Firstly, I want to thank all those GPT figures who taught me about the party in the interviews listed in Appendix 1. I am grateful for their generosity in spending so much time to share their experiences and views and also for helping me to gather the relevant research data. If I have to narrow down to two GPT figures, then I need to thank Yu Wan-ju for the initial invitation to start researching the GPT and Peng Yen-wen for being my perfect research partner for the first half of this project. I could not have completed this project without the support and love of my family, especially my wife Jewel Lo (羅寶珠) and son Laurence Fell (羅洋). Laurence was with me at that first acrimonious GPT focus group on December 17, 2012. Both have helped me with the time-consuming task of transcribing interview data. However, since Laurence went to university in the second year of the project, he has not had to put up with as much as Jewel. Jewel has joined me on numerous field trips and sat through many of my interviews. Particularly in the last year when I started writing the book, I have become more and more obsessed. I have got into the habit of turning every conversation topic back around to the GPT or Trees Party. On our daily walks, over meals, I have been constantly talking about actors from this book. She has told me I sometimes talk the GPT in my sleep. I am sure this did not happen for my first or second books. She has often listened patiently to me as I read out favourite quotes or paragraphs. She also checked my final chapter drafts, often finding typos and suggesting revisions. I’m delighted that she likes this book even more than the earlier ones. I have been encouraged as while checking the chapters, I’ve often heard her laughing uncontrollably. Even though she does yet not fully share my passion for the subject, she did write two understanding blog essays about observing my GPT book writing process, titled ‘It’s hard to write a book’ (寫本書, 很不簡單!) and ‘The GPT, Lobsters and Beer’ (綠黨, 龍蝦和啤酒).1

Note 1 Jewel Lo, 5 January 2020, https://jewellosblog.com/%e5%af%ab%e6%9c%ac%e6% 9b%b8-%e5%be%88%e4%b8%8d%e7%b0%a1%e5%96%ae/; Jewel Lo, 6 April 2020, https://jewellosblog.com/%e7%b6%a0%e9%bb%a8-%e9%be%8d%e8%9d%a6%e5% 92%8c%e5%95%a4%e9%85%92/.

Abbreviations

CCP CEC CSDP DPP GPT KMT MKT NNA NP NPP PDF PFP PRC SBP SDP SMD SNTV TCU TEPU TIP TPP TSU UDN

Chinese Communist Party Central Election Commission Chinese Social Democratic Party Democratic Progressive Party Green Party Taiwan Kuomintang Minkuotang New Nation Alliance New Party New Power Party People’s Democratic Front People First Party People’s Republic of China State Building Party Social Democratic Party Single Member District Single Non-Transferable Vote Taiwan Citizen Union Taiwan Environmental Protection Union Taiwan Independence Party Taiwan People’s Party Taiwan Solidarity Union United Daily News

Note on Romanisation

One of the most challenging things when writing about Taiwan is how to Romanise place names and people’s names. Should we use the traditional Wade Giles system, which dominated until the early 2000s; the Tongyong pinyin system, which was promoted by the Chen Shui-bian government (2000–2008); or the PRC’s Hanyu pinyin, which the Ma Ying-jeou government adopted (2008–2016)? Visitors to Taiwan face a confusing mixture of Romanisation styles in signs. If we take Taiwan’s railway timetable, for instance, we find that most of the largest and well-known locations have retained their Wade Giles spelling, such as Changhua. But smaller stations have been renamed in Hanyu pinyin. To a large extent, I  have tried to stick to using official place names. For the names of people, I  have relied on the Romanisation they use themselves (for instance on Facebook) and the spelling used where they have featured in the Taipei Times. Even this can have its drawbacks – so, for instance, the Taipei Times has used four different spellings for 陳瑞賓, and in this case I opted for Chen Juipin. In the first instance where I use a Chinese name, I also include the Chinese characters in brackets, and readers can always check these again in the index listing and the list of interviewees in Appendix 1.

Part I

Introduction, research questions and formation

1 Taiwan’s Green Parties Alternative politics in Taiwan

On January 25, 2016, the Green Party Taiwan (GPT) celebrated its twentieth anniversary. This made it the fourth oldest party that has regularly contested elections after the Kuomintang (KMT), the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the New Party (NP). With its roots in a range of Taiwanese social movements, the GPT fits well into the category of a movement party (Ho and Huang 2017). For much of the campaign for the January 16, 2016 elections, it looked like the GPT could finally break through and win its first seats in the national parliament, the Legislative Yuan. The party had been building momentum since coming fifth in the 2012 party list component of the Legislative Yuan election. In the years following, it had won its first seats in local assemblies in 2014 and run its best funded and organised national election campaign in 2016. The fact that its core issues of nuclear power and LGBT rights were high on the public agenda, and that public opinion had shifted towards the GPT’s positions in recent years, all boded well for the party’s prospects on January 16. Moreover, it was contesting the elections in alliance with the newly formed Social Democratic Party (SDP), a party with a number of high-profile candidates. By the time the GPT’s birthday arrived on January 25, it is unlikely that much organic champagne was drunk. When the results were announced on January 16, the mood in the party was one of disappointment and bitter recrimination. Though the party’s vote share had increased from 1.7 to 2.5 percent, it was well short of the 5  percent threshold needed to be allocated parliamentary seats. In contrast, it was another movement party, the New Power Party (NPP), that successfully entered parliament with five seats, becoming the third largest party. What made it all the more galling was that the NPP was less than a year old on voting day. By employing a range of social movement-linked appeals, the NPP had attracted the same kind of voters that the GPT had been targeting. Moreover, the NPP even poached potential GPT candidates. For instance, the GPT had decided to nominate Kawlo Iyun Pacidal (高潞 · 以用 · 巴魕剌) and had her nomination photograph taken, but before this was announced, she opted to jump ship and accepted the nomination of the NPP. In this book, I  tell the story of the first 24  years of the GPT’s history, from its establishment through to the aftermath of the most recent national elections in January 2020. Therefore, the book is located in the study of niche and, in

4  Introduction, questions and formation particular, ecological parties. The vast majority of this literature has focused on cases of European Green Parties, so I hope that this first book-length study on an Asian Green Party will contribute to our understanding of global ecological parties. Do the theories and frameworks designed to explain European niche parties, for instance, translate well to an Asian context? Much of my research on Taiwanese political parties can be summed up in terms of ‘how,’ ‘why’ and ‘so what?’ This book is no exception, as it revolves around a small number of core questions. Firstly, I am interested in the overall impact of the party, both in terms of its electoral performance but also its policy goals and international engagement. This is my ‘so what?’ Secondly, I examine the topic of party change. This is defined by Harmel and Janda as ‘any variation, alteration, or modification in how parties are organized, what human and material resources they can draw upon, what they stand for, and what they do’ (1994, 275). In other words, I aim to track how the party has adjusted its issue emphasis and campaign strategies over time – its changing human face and organisation. These are the ‘how’ questions. Lastly, I have three ‘why’ questions. I will discuss how to explain the formation of Taiwan’s Green Parties. Additionally, I am interested in understanding why the party has adopted its changing issue and campaign strategies, as well as how to explain the party’s changing electoral fortunes. Therefore, even though this is a detailed, single-party study, it uses the case as a means to engage with some of the central questions in global party politics and, especially, the niche parties literature.

Origins and case selection justification Why did I  end up writing a book on Taiwan’s Green Party? I  often stress the importance of case justification to my students, so I ought to say a few words on this. Following the GPT’s failure to enter parliament in 2016, quite a few people suggested I ought to drop the project and go back to something more mainstream. As is often the case in most research projects, there are a mixture of personal and academic factors that make up the justification for turning this into a book. My interest in Taiwan’s small parties dates back to the earliest elections I  witnessed in Taiwan in 1989 and 1992, which saw the failed attempt of a number of leftist parties to break the DPP/KMT monopoly of the party system. My first book, which came out of my PhD, was Party Politics in Taiwan (Fell 2005a). It looked at party change of the three main political parties in the first period of multi-party politics (1991–2004). Although I gave much more attention to the KMT and DPP in the book, my third party case was the NP. The NP had been a medium-sized party at its peak in the mid-1990s, but by the time I  was doing my fieldwork, it had degenerated into a shrinking and extremist niche party. I became puzzled over why the NP would adopt what seemed irrational electoral strategies and did not attempt to respond to electoral defeat by moving closer to public opinion, instead preferring to prioritise ideological orthodoxy. Why would a party proudly go for what was clearly a strategy of electoral suicide?

Taiwan’s Green Parties 5 The puzzling experience of studying the NP helped motivate me to write my first journal article on small parties in Taiwan, which attempted to offer a broad overview of the development of such parties from 1989 through to 2004 (Fell 2005b). The focus of that piece was on the failed early leftist parties and the more successful splinter parties that had broken away from the two mainstream parties. I could not recall whether I even mentioned the GPT, and on rereading the article, I discovered I just had two brief paragraphs on the party’s early period in the 1990s. The turning point came in October 2012, when I was asked to share news of a research funding bid from the Australian Greens by the then Co-Convenor of the GPT, Yu Wan-ju (余宛如). The previous year, Yu had been a student on the MA Food Anthropology at my university, SOAS University of London, and had written her dissertation on Taiwanese beef noodles and national identity. I had been fascinated by the fact that just months after submitting her dissertation in midSeptember 2011, she had stood as a GPT candidate in the January 2012 parliamentary elections. Instead of sharing the news of the funding opportunity among my students, I decided to bid for the project myself, together with a Taiwanese scholar and former GPT candidate and Convenor Peng Yen-wen (彭渰雯). Although we did not receive the Australian Green Party funds, we decided to go ahead and run a couple of focus group sessions involving current and former GPT leaders, activists and candidates in December 2012. The experience of those two focus groups left me hooked on the topic. The disorganised nature of the party and the idealism, passion, hostility and anger I witnessed in those initial sessions was entirely different from anything I had experienced in my studies of mainstream parties in Taiwan. This was to be the start of eight years of interviews, focus groups, surveys and other data collection that together form the basis of this book. When in 2013 I came to the task of writing a journal article that explained the fortunes of small parties after 2004 (going beyond my 2005 article), the GPT received much more attention (Fell 2014). Of course, the majority of the article had to be on the splinter parties, but I devoted over a page and a half to the development of the GPT between 2006 and 2012. Although one of the article’s reviewers asked me to drop the GPT section, I resisted that revision request. It took us longer than we would have liked to get the first academic publications from our project out. Naturally, we were distracted by multiple teaching, research and administrative pressures. Peng was under even more pressure, as she is not only heavily involved in a number of social activism projects, but also had her second child in the second year of our research. As we built up our data collection, we also had our first GPT-centred publications with ‘The Electoral Fortunes of Taiwan’s Green Party: 1996–2012’ (Fell and Peng 2016) and the book chapter ‘The Revival of Taiwan’s Green Party after 2008’ (Fell and Peng 2017). While the former examined the overall development of the party up to the 2012 elections, the latter concentrated on its development during the KMT’s rule between 2008 and 2016. Although we were able to bring in some of our fieldwork data, I was convinced that the quantity and quality of our collected data justified a booklength treatment of the GPT.

6  Introduction, questions and formation One of my biggest regrets about this project is that, despite multiple attempts, I was unable to persuade Peng Yen-wen to join the book writing. It has been a pleasure to co-author with her over this period and she has been my mentor, guiding me through the complexity of Green Party politics and correcting my many misunderstandings. I also should note that she has been instrumental in so much of the data collection in the project.

Academic justifications There are also a range of academic reasons that make an in-depth study of Taiwan’s Green Party worthwhile. Firstly, the GPT is without doubt the most international Taiwanese party, as a very active member of both Asia Pacific Greens and Global Greens. In fact, it was also joined by a second Taiwanese ecological party, the Taiwan Trees Party, in these bodies. Although the KMT and DPP are members of similar international party federations (International Democratic Union and Liberal International), their levels of engagement do not come close to those of the GPT. Our interviews revealed how much GPT activists value this international engagement. Moreover, the six core values of the Global Greens Charter serve as an important set of guidelines for how the GPT tries to promote its ideals domestically. At a time when China is attempting to squeeze Taiwan’s international space at every possible opportunity, the Green’s global activism represents an important component of Taiwan’s civil society-led public diplomacy. There are also comparative reasons that make the GPT worth studying. Green Parties tend to have more electoral success in older democracies and where the levels of economic prosperity are higher. However, despite Japan and South Korea being older democracies and having higher levels of economic wealth than Taiwan, both their Green Parties were established much later (2011–12) and have had less electoral impact compared to the GPT. In fact, in recent years, the GPT has worked in solidarity with both these neighbouring parties to try to support them and share its own knowledge and experiences. There is a rich literature on the Green Party of the England and Wales, but it took that party 38 years to win its first parliamentary seat (Meguid 2008; Spoon 2011). In contrast, the GPT won its first (and so far only) National Assembly seat within months of its establishment in 1996. Given the dominance of the KMT and DPP in Taiwan’s party system, it is not surprising that most of the party politics literature has focused on these actors. However, long-term observers of party politics as well as survey research has highlighted the growing alienation from mainstream parties. Parties are often listed as one of the least trusted political institutions in surveys. Scholars have described the 2014 Sunflower Movement as being partly caused by the perceived failure of mainstream party politics (Cole 2017). However, in the aftermath of the Sunflower Movement, though movement parties did make limited inroads into local and national assemblies, to a large extent it was the DPP that really reaped the electoral rewards, despite being quite marginal in the movement itself. Why did the rise of social movements in the Ma presidency (2008–16) not result in an

Taiwan’s Green Parties  7 earthquake in Taiwan’s party system? In other words, examining the operation of movement parties allows us to understand the party system from a quite distinct angle. It also should be noted that where small party politicians get elected, they often punch above their weight. In the last decade of Taiwan’s martial law era, the small number of directly elected Tangwai (黨外) politicians attracted far more public attention than the hundreds of parliamentarians that had been frozen in office since 1947.1 The sole Green Party MP in the UK parliament, Caroline Lucas, also receives disproportionately high media attention. We saw a similar pattern in Taiwan; though only 3 out of over 900 city or county councillors belonged to the GPT, one of those three, Taoyuan city councillor Wang Hau-yu (王浩宇), was probably the most well-known councillor in the whole of Taiwan in 2019. Another important reason to study the GPT is that it has often been a pioneer in its issue advocacy. Since its establishment, its leaders have played a central role in the anti-nuclear movement. Moreover, its leading activists have been at the forefront of almost all of Taiwan’s environmental campaigns (Grano 2015). Similarly, it was the first party to nominate openly gay candidates and advocated marriage equality as early as 2010. One challenge when we study Green Parties globally is whether we should treat them as political parties or civil society organisations. This means that the topic attracts the interest of both political scientists and sociologists, and this kind of cross-pollination of research enriches the field. There is often a blurred line between Green Parties and social movements, and in fact, the GPT has often branded itself as a mouthpiece of Taiwanese civil society. This was one reason Peng and I were able to publish our second GPT article in an edited book about Taiwanese social movements (Fell and Peng 2017). As mentioned earlier, a challenge to the research project was the GPT’s limited electoral success over its first two decades. However, scholars of electoral politics know that explaining failure can be as interesting and valuable as explaining success. A key finding of the book is that electoral failure has never been inevitable. If the party had adopted different strategies, there had been different mainstream party approaches and patterns of competing small parties, then it is quite likely the GPT could have achieved more breakthroughs. This focus on both mainstream party approaches, competing small parties and the GPT’s own strategies will form the basis of the framework of analysis that I will apply in the empirical chapters. When we set out on the GPT research project, one of our stated objectives was to produce a practical set of lessons on how the GPT can improve its future electoral performance. Somehow, we never managed to deliver on this pledge, but I do hope that some practical lessons will come out of this study for not only the GPT but also other ecological parties operating in challenging political environments. Lastly, I hope readers will be inspired by the stories and voices of the hundreds of GPT activists who have struggled over the last few decades for not only the cause of environmental protection but also a range of social justice goals. Often their activism has involved huge sacrifices of their time, finances, careers, health and family life. Despite the many times when doubts crept into my mind over

8  Introduction, questions and formation whether I would ever finish this book, their stories have inspired me to persevere and keep writing.

Overview of the book The book is divided into seven parts and fifteen chapters. Part I has three chapters. Following this initial introductory chapter, the second chapter introduces the main frameworks of analysis that will be used to study the development of the GPT. In addition, the frameworks for explaining both party change and electoral impact will be introduced. I will explain how I locate this study within the small or ecological parties literature. Lastly, in Chapter 2 I  will briefly introduce the fieldwork methods and data on which this book is based and which have made the research process so enjoyable. Chapter 3 will address the question of party formation. Naturally, I will tell the story of how the GPT was established in early 1996 in the run up to the National Assembly elections, but I will discuss also the establishment of a party that split away from the GPT in 2014, the Trees Party. Then there are two chapters in Part II that discuss the changing impact and human face of the Green Parties. Chapter 4 will use a range of data to plot the long-term lifespan evolution of the parties after foundation. In addition to the GPT’s electoral performance, I also examine its changing patterns of international engagement. This chapter will rely on local and national electoral results, media visibility and some interview data. Then Chapter 5 will focus on party change in terms of human resources. Thus, it examines the changing personalities and sociological background of the party leaders and candidates. In addition, it offers a picture of the background of party activists and voters. Parts III–VI then examine the Green Parties’ development in four time periods. These empirical chapters focus on one ‘how’ question and two of my ‘why’ questions. Thus, they examine how the issue and campaign strategies of the party have changed over time. Additionally, they address how best to explain the patterns of party change and how to explain the party’s changing electoral performance. The three chapters in Part III examine the party’s initial decade from 1996 to 2005. Thus, Chapter  6 and 7 discuss the GPT’s promising first national (1996) and local (1998) electoral experiences. Then, Chapter 8 introduces its quietest or semi-dormant phase between 2000 and 2005. In this period, the party only nominated a handful of candidates in a small number of elections and was entirely absent from most elections. Part IV examines the period starting in 2006, when the party returns to electoral politics, through to 2012. I call this period the Pan Han-sheng (潘翰聲) or Taipei period, as Pan developed into the closest that the party had to a star politician and the focal area for the party in terms of operation and nomination was the greater Taipei region. This part is divided into two chapters, with Chapter 9 looking at the return to local and national elections between 2006 and 2009 and Chapter 10 at the struggle to transition from merely standing for election to becoming competitive in the latter part of the Pan era. Next, Part V examines the attempt to make the GPT into a more professional party under the leadership of Lee Ken-cheng (李根政) from 2013 through to the 2016 elections. This features the well-funded and organised

Taiwan’s Green Parties  9 2014 local (Chapter  11) and 2016 national (Chapter  12) campaigns. Although Lee was Co-Convenor for much of this period, I have termed it the Lee Kencheng period, as he became the dominant figure in the party. In addition to the GPT, I  also give some attention to the development of the second ecological party, the Trees Party, in Part V. Then the two chapters in Part VI consider what happened after the failed breakthrough in 2016, as Lee and his key allies left or were marginalised. Increasingly, the face of the party became the GPT’s Taoyuan city councillor, Wang Hau-yu. This will take us up to the most recent campaign, the January 2020 national elections, which took place as I was writing the book. Finally, in the concluding Chapter 15, I attempt to bring the various strands of the GPT story together. These include looking at the aftermath of the 2020 campaign, its latest attempts at rebuilding and rebranding and returning to the research questions that I started out with in Chapter 1. Lastly, I consider the lessons that can be learnt for how environmental parties can survive and thrive in challenging political contexts.

Note 1 The term Tangwai literally means outside of the party. During Taiwan’s martial law era, it was a one-party state, and so those opposition figures that stood as independents were known as the Tangwai.

References Cole, Michael J. 2017. ‘Civic Activism and Protests in Taiwan: Why Size Doesn’t (Always) Matter.’ In Dafydd Fell (ed.), Taiwan’s Social Movements under Ma Ying-jeou from the Wild Strawberries to the Sunflowers. Abingdon: Routledge, 18–33. Fell, Dafydd. 2005a. Party Politics in Taiwan. London Routledge. Fell, Dafydd. 2005b. ‘Success and Failure of New Parties in Taiwanese Elections.’ China: An International Journal, 3(2): 212–239. Fell, Dafydd. 2014. ‘Measuring and Explaining the Electoral Fortunes of Small Parties in Taiwan’s Party Politics.’ Issues and Studies. An International Quarterly on China, Taiwan, and East Asian Affairs, 50(1): 153–188. Fell, Dafydd and Yen-wen Peng. 2016. ‘The Electoral Fortunes of Taiwan’s Green Party: 1996–2012.’ Japanese Journal of Political Science, 17(1): 63–83. Fell, Dafydd and Yen-wen Peng. 2017. ‘The Revival of Taiwan’s Green Party after 2008.’ In Dafydd Fell (ed.), Taiwan’s Social Movements under Ma Ying-jeou From the Wild Strawberries to the Sunflowers. Abingdon: Routledge, 177–198. Grano, Simona. 2015. Environmental Governance: A New Generation of Activists and Stakeholders. London: Routledge. Harmel, Robert and Kenneth Janda. 1994. ‘An Integrated Theory of Party Goals and Party Change.’ Journal of Theoretical Politics, 6(3): 259–287. Ho, Ming-sho and Chun-hao Huang. 2017. ‘Movement Parties in Taiwan, 1987–2016.’ Asian Survey, 57(2): 343–367. Meguid, Bonnie. 2008. Party Competition between Unequals: Strategies and Electoral Fortunes in Western Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spoon, Jae-Jae. 2011. Political Survival of Small Parties in Europe. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

2 Frameworks and data for analysing Taiwan’s Green Parties

When discussing research projects with students, once the core research questions have been established, the next step is how to operationalise the project. This requires consideration of a number of core questions. These include: what is the unit of analysis? How will you define your central concepts? What has been published already on the subject? What frameworks are best suited for your research? What data can best help you answer your research questions, and can you get that data? These are the key themes I will address in this chapter. On the surface, the unit of analysis should be quite straightforward: political parties. In this case, then, it should be the Green Party Taiwan and its splinter the Trees Party. Here are a few definitions of what a political party is: an institution that (a) seeks influence in a state, often by attempting to occupy positions in government, and (b) usually consists of more than a single interest in the society and so to some degree attempts to aggregate interests. (Ware 2001, 5) Coalitions of elites to capture and use political office. [But] a political party is more than a coalition. A political party is an institutionalized coalition, one that has adopted rules, norms and procedures. (Aldrich 1995, 19) An autonomous group of citizens having the purpose of making nominations and contesting elections in the hope of gaining control over governmental power through the capture of public offices and the organization of the government. (Huckshorn 1984, 10) Alan Ware notes that some elements of his definition may not apply for small parties (2001, 5). Similarly, in his discussion of what a political party is, John White cites the American Green Party as a case that challenges such definitional standards (2006, 5). This book will show that many of the ingredients of these definitions of a political party just do not apply to the GPT.

Frameworks and data  11 One such challenge we face when studying many Green Parties, including the GPT, is whether we should treat them as a political party or a social movement organisation. The GPT was established by Taiwan’s environmental movement, and the vast majority of its convenors and candidates have had rich activist backgrounds. GPT politicians move back and forth between the two in their careers and daily lives. GPT politicians feature prominently in the social movement case studies in Simona Grano’s book Environmental Governance in Taiwan (2015). However, our approaches are distinct. Grano’s research is centred on movements in which GPT figures play important roles, while in this book I try to focus on the GPT as a party rather than the social movements in which its politicians are involved. I  do appreciate that the boundaries are often blurred, especially as social movement activism has often been a core component of official GPT campaigns. Returning to the definitions of a political party, it is clear the GPT cannot be regarded as very institutionalised, and it is not yet seeking to gain control over governmental power. Taking into account the considerations noted previously, the definition of Green Parties I adopt in this volume is as follows: (1) they are institutions that seek to influence state policies and public opinion by contesting elections, and to engage in policy promotion between elections; (2) though their candidates hope to get elected, in the majority of cases it is more important to promote their values and policies than it is to actually get elected; (3) they have tended to have an ambiguous relationship with social movements. A common debate on the unit of analysis in studies on small parties is which parties to include in the research. At one extreme, Robert Harmel and John Robertson argue against using electoral success thresholds, preferring to instead include any registered party (1985, 508). When I first wrote on Taiwan’s small parties in 2005, there were 102 registered parties in Taiwan; as of late October 2019, there were 356 (Ministry of Interior 2019). Kenneth Janda (1980) suggests any legal party gaining over 5 percent in a parliamentary election, while Thomas Rochan’s threshold is any party that has held at least one parliamentary seat (1985, 421). Although these are easy to operationalise, all these standards have their drawbacks. The vast majority of the 356 parties are only parties on paper and do not contest elections on a regular basis.1 Instead, what is worth paying attention to are relevant or significant parties that have at least the potential to affect the party system or electoral outcomes. I have tended to take a relatively inclusive approach as to what constitutes a relevant party, with 1 percent of the vote share my standard in one study; in another article on the 2016 election, I included parties that were running serious campaigns (Fell 2005b, 2016). Rochan’s one parliamentary seat threshold also is open to challenge when it comes to assessing the relevance of a political party. The Taiwan Independence Party (建國黨 TIP) and New Nation Alliance (新國家連線 NNA) were formed at around the same time as the GPT in the mid- to late 1990s. They both won at least one national parliamentary seat in their first Legislative Yuan elections and had a higher vote share than the GPT in 1998. However, to use football terminology, they were one-season wonders, as

12  Introduction, questions and formation their elected legislators defected back to their original mainstream party. While those two parties effectively ceased to exist after a single term, the GPT has had a more long-term presence and thus has left a deeper imprint on Taiwan’s political scene. A further issue of debate in the study of non-mainstream parties is what the most appropriate label is for such actors. One option is the term new parties, and I did use this in my first article in 2005 (Fell 2005b). But when does a party cease to be new, especially as the GPT is over 24 years old? A Taiwan-specific challenge to the use of the new parties label is that one of the most successful nonmainstream parties is the NP, thus creating inevitable confusion. Another option is to call them small parties, and we do see this in both Taiwan-specific and broader comparative studies (Fell 2016; Spoon 2011). Of course, this means that this term could capture almost all of Taiwan’s parties, including those parties that only exist on paper. Moreover, parties can transition out of the small party category through either major electoral breakthroughs or entering coalition governments. The best example of this is the German Greens, which has both held national level ministries but also arguably moved closer to the medium-sized party category. At its peak, Taiwan’s People First Party (PFP) looked like it had the potential to even become the second largest party. Paul Lucardie offers a useful framework for distinguishing new parties according to the political project they espouse. His four party types are prophets, purifiers, prolocutors and personal vehicles (2000). While the meaning of the personal vehicles party type speaks for itself, he defines prolocutors as those parties which try to articulate particular neglected interests without reference to an explicit ideology (176). He defines the purifier as a party which clings to an existing ideology, which it feels is diluted or betrayed by one (or more) of the established parties. Quite often, the founders of this type of new party were dissident members of an established party which revised its traditional ideology. (2000, 177) In contrast, he terms prophetic parties those that promote new ideologies and stress issues that are either neglected or ignored by mainstream parties. To a certain extent, the idea of a prophetic party does overlap with another frequently used term, the niche party. Meguid proposed three main features of the niche party: (1) ‘Instead of prioritizing economic demands, these parties politicize sets of issues that were previously outside the dimensions of party competition.’ (2) Niche parties ‘appeal to groups of voters that may cross-cut – and undermine traditional patterns of partisan alignment.’ (3) ‘Niche parties further differentiate themselves by limiting their issue appeals’ (Meguid 2008, 3–4). Although scholars tend to place Green Parties in the niche or prophetic category, this book will show that, in Taiwan, the distinction is not so clear-cut. This is because a mainstream party, the DPP, first embraced environmental appeals; the GPT was only formed ten years

Frameworks and data  13 later when it was perceived that the DPP was diluting its commitment to environmentalism. Therefore, on the surface the GPT seems to have some characteristics of both a purifier and prophetic party. A final label that requires consideration is that of the movement party. Herbert Kitschelt defines these as ‘coalitions of political activists who emanate from social movements and try to apply the organizational and strategic practices of social movements in the arena of party competition’ (2006, 280). Given the social movement roots and sociological base of the GPT, this label is relevant for analysis and has been used in the Taiwan case by Ho and Huang (2017). Nevertheless, one regular feature of many of the interviews conducted in the research for this book was the frequent tensions between social movement organisations and the GPT.

Existing studies on the GPT Despite the GPT’s limited electoral success, it has attracted the attention of researchers in both sociology and political science. In fact, though the party has had far less media visibility than the other older non-mainstream parties, such as the PFP, NP or Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), it has had similar levels of academic attention. Nevertheless, a key feature of the majority of existing studies on the GPT is that it has tended to be treated as playing the supporting rather than the leading role. I divide the existing studies on the GPT into four broad types: (1) social movement studies; (2) publications written by activists; (3) small party studies; and (4) studies that focus on the sociological support base of the GPT. In both a journal article and his book Green Democracy, the sociologist Ho Ming-sho (何明修) briefly discusses the establishment, initial rise and limited electoral impact of the GPT in the 1990s (2003, 701–706, 2006, 193–195). He views the establishment of the GPT as the environmental movement’s attempt to reassert its autonomy from the DPP. He also attempts to explain why the GPT was, electorally, ‘no more than a paper tiger’ (2003, 704). Key variables that Ho uses to explain this include the GPT’s own strategic mistakes, its lack of resources and the DPP’s counter-strategies. Grano’s book, Environmental Governance in Taiwan (2015), examines more recent developments through the lens of four environmental movement case studies. GPT activists feature in all four cases, and Grano and I have interviewed some of the same people. The GPT is especially visible in her chapters on the Taipei Dome BOT Project and the Tamsui North Shore Road Project. This is because there were well-known GPT figures standing for election there, and they made these issues central campaign themes. However, as mentioned earlier, Grano’s approach largely centres on social movements rather than parties. In her book she quotes Paul Jobin, who sums up their understanding of the GPT, which ‘continued to play an active role in environmental issues, but more as a member of the environmental movement at large rather than as a political party’ (Jobin 2010, 48).

14  Introduction, questions and formation In one of our GPT focus groups, a leading figure, Pan Han-sheng, said: So I feel that after we have accumulated a long history of the environmental movement, we ought to delve into this history. But now in Taiwan few scholars are doing this. Ho Ming-sho has done some research, but many environmentalists do not accept his perspective. We do not yet have an environmental movement history that we can accept, at least not yet.2 There have been a limited number of academic publications written by GPT activists themselves. Pan’s own 2012 journal article in Ecology Taiwan (生態台灣) offers his analysis of the GPT’s electoral development from 2006 through to 2012, as well as suggestions for how the party could cross the 5 percent threshold to enter parliament in 2016. In 2011, the former Convenor of the GPT’s Gender Branch, Song Hung-kuang (宋竑廣), published two short articles on the party’s experience of nominating the first openly LGBT election candidates (Song 2011a, 2011b). Pan Han-sheng’s 2012 campaign and that of Wang Chung-ming (王鐘銘) in 2010 (discussed in Song 2011a) had been two of the party’s best in terms of votes and vote share in the post-2000 period. There probably would have been more activist publications if the GPT candidates had been more successful. As campaign manager, Calvin Wen (溫炳原) commented on an almost successful GPT campaign for a Taipei City Council seat in 1998: Of course not winning we felt down. We were so close. Some classmates that had been helping said, it’s such a pity. They’d been hoping to write a book on how to win election with NT$1 million, this would definitely have sold well.3 Unfortunately, there has yet to be an activist-written book on the GPT in the mode of James Marshall’s volume on the history of the Green Party of Canada (2019). The largest number of publications that touch upon the GPT fall into the category of small party studies. In Chapter 1, I touched upon my two pieces co-authored with Peng Yen-wen on the GPT, as well as three journal articles that look at the development of small parties from the 1980s through to 2016. One feature of the small party pieces is that the sections on the GPT were much more extensive in the most recent articles. The rise of the NPP in 2016 has inspired increased academic interest in small parties. Four pieces particularly stand out among the recent publications. Firstly, Ho and Huang’s article on movement parties in Taiwan (2017) attempts to explain the impact of such parties from the leftist parties of the late 1980s through to the 2016 competition between the NPP and the GPT SDP Alliance. They ‘explain the rise and fall of movement parties by changes in electoral system, level of movement activism, and the permeability of the DPP’ (342). The second more recent piece is by Lev Nachman (2018) and examines what he terms the misalignment between social movement activists and the DPP. Although the focus is not on the GPT, he does discuss at length an interview with a co-founder of the Trees Party (889–890). What is particularly useful in this article is how he shows the growing alienation among movement activists from the DPP, which partly explains the

Frameworks and data  15 support for third-force parties. In addition, Nachman has a forthcoming piece that tries to theorise about the formation of the newer movement parties, the NPP and the SDP (2020). The section that is especially useful for my study considers the puzzle of why the figures that went on to establish the NPP and SDP did not join or merge with the GPT, despite the fact that they were ideologically very similar (Nachman 2020, 10–13). A fourth recent article by Wang, Weng and Wang examines the relationship between small party district nomination and their performance on the party list vote in 2016. They find that there is a contamination effect, but there is only a positive spill over effect on the party list when the small parties nominate strong district candidates (Wang, Weng, and Wang 2018). The GPT coming fifth in the 2012 parliamentary election showed the potential of a movement party to have an impact on the party system. This appears to have inspired some academic research. For instance, two MA theses were completed in Taiwan with a focus on the GPT in 2014–2015. Huang Chia-feng’s (黃嘉芳) thesis from National Taiwan University analysed the linkage between environmental protests and voting for the GPT in 2012 (2014). She then went on to publish on this topic together with two established academics (Teng, Huang, and Wu 2015). They found that anti-industrial pollution protests do not have a significant statistical effect on the GPT’s vote; instead, these protests are more important for mainstream party voting. As for GPT voting, they find that the best environment is more urbanised districts. Of all the GPT literature reviewed here, the most useful for this book was a MA dissertation from National Sun Yat Sen University by Lin Sheng-Jr (林聖智), supervised by Peng Yen-wen (Lin 2015). His thesis is titled ‘Preliminary Study of Green Party Taiwan Supporters’ Voting Behavior.’ Using both interviews and focus group data, Lin examines the sociological characteristics and voting behaviour of GPT supporters, as well as offering some proposals on how the party can improve its future development. Since I collaborated with Lin and Peng in some of the data collection, such as chairing the party member focus groups, I will give more details on this later in this chapter.

Frameworks of analysis Party lifespan How can we best plot the electoral development of the GPT? This is the ‘so what?’ question I raised in Chapter 1 and will examine in detail in Chapter 4. Morgens Pedersen has proposed a framework to understand small party development as mortal organisations bounded by a lifespan (1982). Van Haute summarises Pedersen’s four main phases of development as follows (2016, 4): 1

The threshold of declaration, which corresponds to the parties’ origins, when they declare their first participation to elections; 2 The threshold of authorisation, which refers to the meeting of legal regulations or requirements in order to participate in elections;

16  Introduction, questions and formation 3 4

The threshold of representation, that is the gaining of the first seats in parliament; The threshold of relevance, which corresponds to an impact on government formation and policy output.

This framework has been applied to multiple European Green Parties in van Haute’s edited book, European Green Parties (2016). Overall, the framework works better for more established Green Parties, such as the German Greens, that have reached the threshold of relevance as a result of participation in governments at both the local and national level. However, many Green Parties have not even reached the threshold of representation, at least at the national level. Therefore, to better capture the GPT’s patterns of party lifespan, I will adopt a more detailed set of thresholds:   1 Threshold of declaration, which corresponds to the parties’ formal registration at Taiwan’s Ministry of Interior;   2 Threshold of authorisation, which refers to the meeting of legal regulations or requirements in order to participate in elections. In other words, the first time the party’s candidates are listed on the Central Election Commission’s (CEC) election gazettes;   3 Threshold of international green involvement. An initial stage could be determined by the date a party receives acknowledgement from overseas Green Parties and a further stage would be joining as a member and actively participating in Global Greens and Asia Pacific Greens programmes;   4 Threshold of competitivity. Whether or not the party can run campaigns in which its candidates are competitive against those from the mainstream parties, even though they may not yet win election;   5 The threshold of local representation, that is, the gaining of the first seats in local assemblies;   6 The threshold of national representation, that is, the gaining of the first seats in national parliaments;   7 Threshold of re-election, that is, where elected politicians are able to retain their seats. Failure to do so may involve electoral defeat, defection to other parties or simply the decision not to stand again;   8 Threshold of recovery, that is, where a party can recover from serious electoral defeat and return to local or national politics;   9 Nationwide threshold, that is, the ability of a party to expand its candidate nomination as well as party organisations beyond its original core region; 10 The threshold of relevance, which corresponds to an impact on government formation and policy output. This can also potentially be subdivided between local and national relevance. A number of these additional thresholds require brief explanations. Adding the threshold of international involvement seems valid given the importance that Green Parties place on their internationalism. Many Green Party candidates

Frameworks and data  17 are token candidates that have no chance of getting elected, but an important moment for party development comes when their candidates can at least run a serious campaign that threatens mainstream parties. Therefore, I  have added a threshold of competitivity. I also subdivided the threshold of representation between local and the national level because in many cases, Green Parties are initially more successful at the local level and only later win seats at the national level. I  added the threshold of re-election, as a common feature for politicians from Taiwan’s smaller parties is that they struggle to retain office. In addition to those that lose their re-election bids, another common phenomenon is that mainstream parties will persuade small party politicians to defect. Therefore, the ability to retain office marks a stage in a party’s journey towards maturity. Almost all Green Parties will experience electoral setbacks; even the German Greens lost their representation in the Bundestag in 1990. In Taiwan, after major electoral defeats, a number of smaller parties have collapsed and ceased contesting or at least being competitive in elections. Therefore, the ability to recover and return to electoral politics marks another important threshold that is especially relevant to small parties. A  final threshold I  have added is that of being a nationwide party. Many smaller parties struggle to break out of their base region. For instance, Taiwan’s NP has always been strongest in the Taipei region, and even though it did win nationwide seats in its peak election of 1995, since 2001 it has mainly only been able to survive in Taipei City Council. Therefore, I  will try to plot how the GPT develops with respect to these thresholds in subsequent chapters, particularly in Chapter  4. Naturally, party development is rarely linear, and there will be cases of the party moving backwards or even skipping stages.

Analysing and measuring party change What do Green Parties stand for? For most people, Green Parties are single-issue organisations that are solely interested in environmental protection. They are narrowly focused niche parties. However, studies of Green Parties around the world reveal that they tend to engage with a comprehensive range of policy issues (van Haute 2016). The six core principles of the Global Greens Charter are (1) participatory democracy; (2) nonviolence; (3) social justice; (4) sustainability; (5) respect for diversity; and (6) ecological wisdom. After each Global Greens Congress, the meanings of these principles and how to promote them through political action are elaborated in the revised Global Greens Charter. This document reveals the diverse ideological grounding of global Green Parties and is an important way that Green Parties around the world are tied together. These principles are taken seriously by the Taiwanese Greens. They are featured on the homepage of the GPT’s website. The detailed Chinese and English draft of the 2012 Global Greens Charter can be found on both the GPT website and the Global Greens website.4 A frequent topic of conversation with activists and candidates was how to integrate the six core principles into their campaigns and make them relevant and understandable to potential Taiwanese voters.

18  Introduction, questions and formation In Taiwan, GPT candidates also need to convince doubters that they are more than just a single-issue niche party. However, the GPT has long faced an image challenge quite different from other Green Parties in the world. That is, how to distinguish itself from one of the mainstream parties, namely the DPP. There are both historical and linguistic reasons for this. Many social movements have operated in alliance with the DPP, and on the vast majority of issues, they have tended to be closer to the DPP than the KMT. Moreover, in addition to a limited number of cases where the DPP and GPT have cooperated, the DPP has poached a number of GPT figures to serve as candidates or for government positions. Equally troubling is that the term Green Party (綠黨) is often equated with the DPP in everyday and media discourse. This is because the main colour on the DPP’s party flag is green, and as the term Green camp (綠營) became popularised in the post-2000 period, the term Green Party became more commonly associated with the DPP. When I was doing my media analysis of references to the GPT, I needed to carefully filter out terms such as Green Party leader (綠黨揆) or Green Party caucus (綠黨團), which were always actually referring to the DPP. Therefore, one of the common complaints of GPT activists has been the time it takes to dispel voters’ impressions that they are a part of the Green camp, a DPP branch faction or even just part of the DPP. Although the Global Greens Charter serves as a set of guidelines for Green Parties, like all political parties, they change over time. Therefore, one of the goals of this book is to assess how the GPT has changed over time in terms of its issue appeals and positions, as well as its campaign strategies. Measuring party change is a popular topic in the field of comparative politics. One strand, associated with the Comparative Manifesto Group, relies on content analysis of parties’ election manifestoes (Budge et al. 2001). A second strand relies instead on expert surveys to locate parties on core policy spectrums (Benoit and Laver 2006). In Taiwan, neither methodology has been widely used in its purest form. One reason is that parties have not had the tradition of issuing comprehensive election manifestoes. An alternative to manifestoes, used by Liu Tsung-wei, is content analysis of party candidate election gazette policy proposals (2002). The election gazettes are documents issued to all voters and include the candidate’s age, sex, party, occupation, education and experience, as well as policy proposals. Other alternatives to track party change in Taiwan have been to use content analysis of election advertising as well as to examine presidential speeches (Fell 2005a; Sullivan 2009). The majority of these studies have attempted to generate statistical data to plot party change. In Taiwan, rather than elite surveys, a more common method of studying party change has been to rely on public opinion surveys. These can be divided into those studies that primarily rely on party image data (Lin Chiung-chu 2006) and those that use surveys that ask respondents to locate parties on major issue spectrums (Hsieh 2002; Sheng and Liao 2017). Of course, there are also studies that mainly employ more qualitative analysis, often using interview or documentary reviews as the main source of evidence (Rigger 2001). In my first book, Party Politics in Taiwan, the main sources that I used to analyse party issue change were election advertising (both newspaper

Frameworks and data  19 and television ads) and elite interviews, while party image surveys were used as a secondary source (Fell 2005a). In order to review the changing campaign appeals of the GPT, I will also use a variety of data, though I have had to adopt a slightly different strategy to my earlier work on mainstream parties. Paid-for newspaper or television ads, similarly, are not an option as the GPT has almost never bought such advertising space. Instead, I have used a combination of official party statements, election gazettes, newspaper reports, online videos placed on YouTube and interviews to create a picture of the party’s changing campaign communication. It has not been possible to obtain exactly the same types of material for each period. This is due partly to availability of material and partly to the changing media system. Another challenge is to determine what counts as party communication. In Party Politics in Taiwan, I mainly focused on what I called official advertising, which was issued by the party headquarters or its nominated presidential candidates rather than candidate- or supporter-sponsored ads. Since the GPT party centre has often been quite weak, I have also made extensive use of communication material issued by candidates.

Why do parties change? A common pattern for Green Parties is that they will often moderate from their radical roots as they become more established in parliaments and gain the experience of serving in coalition governments. But given that it took 18 years for the GPT to even get its candidates elected at the local level, will there be different patterns of party change? I  will discuss the GPT’s changing issue appeals and campaign strategies in my empirical chapters in Parts III–VI. With this in place, I  will be able to address one of my three ‘why’ questions, that of how to best explain the party’s patterns of change. Andreas Fagerholm’s overview of studies on explaining party policy change reveals that there have been a number of competing approaches (2016). He notes, for instance, that ‘the most thoroughly examined is the expectation that changes in public opinion cause parties to change their positions’ (505). However, he also concludes that ‘empirical evidence clearly indicates that mainstream parties in general, and mainstream right-wing parties in particular, change their policy positions when public opinion moves away from the party while niche and activistdominated parties tend to follow their own supporters’ (506). Thus, a clear public opinion approach will have its limitations for the study of a movement party like the GPT. A further approach that Fagerholm reviews argues that explaining how parties make decisions to change or to adopt continuity is closely related to their core party goals. Wolfgang Müller and Kaare Strøm (1999) distinguish between officeseeking, policy-seeking and vote-seeking models of party behaviour. Harmel and Janda add a further party goal of inner-party democracy maximising, which they define as ‘for parties whose main goal is careful and active representation of members’ wishes (i.e. majority wishes), changes in those views are an obvious

20  Introduction, questions and formation “internal” source of change on what is articulated’ (Harmel and Janda 1994, 271). Although most serious parties aspire to maximise multiple party goals, they often will face difficult decisions on whether to prioritise one of these objectives and to sacrifice others. It is generally assumed that mainstream parties will prioritise seeking office above all other considerations, but Strøm and Müller show that all types of parties will face such trade-offs. However, as was the case of the NP after 1998 discussed in Chapter 1, small parties often place greater importance on policy or ideological goals. Moreover, the importance that Green Parties place on democratic decision making means that its members’ views should also be an important variable in their behaviour. Therefore, a challenge in this study is to examine how the GPT handles these often competing party goals. Has it really just been an idealistic policy-seeking party? Have the party’s campaign appeals been determined by the wishes of its activist member base? Harmel and Janda (1994) propose a useful model for explaining party change that builds on Strøm and Müller. They assume that parties are conservative organisations that tend to be resistant to change. For change to occur, they argue that it will require two internal factors and an external one. Internally changes in party leadership and changes in the factional balance of power are likely to be decisive. They suggest that in combination with internal power changes, a range of possible external shocks may cause the party to re-evaluate its positions. Such external stimuli could include electoral defeats, economic recession, changes in the party system or constitutional change. I  have previously adopted this framework to explain Taiwanese party issue emphasis change as well as parties’ organisational change in the realm of nomination practices (Fell 2005a, 2006). To operationalise the framework, then, it is necessary to have a clear sense of changing inner-party factional balance of power and leadership change. Harmel and Janda also propose that the way their model will work will vary according to the primary party goals. For vote-seeking parties, the electoral shock should be critically important. As Kris Deschouwer notes, ‘electoral defeat is (thought to be) the mother of change. But that only works as long as we accept that the electoral goal is dominant’ (1992, 9). Although I am assuming the effect of electoral defeat will be less on the more policy-seeking GPT, it will be interesting to test this. Other potential external stimuli will be the radical reform of the electoral system in 2005 and changes in the ruling parties following presidential elections in 2000, 2008 and 2016.

Explaining small party electoral success and failure I now come to my third ‘why’ question, that of how to explain the GPT’s electoral fortunes. This is probably the most heavily contested research question in the study of small parties. In her overview of existing studies on this topic, Bonnie Meguid is critical of what she calls the ‘standard responses to variation in new party electoral success’ (2008, 6). These are the institutional approaches and sociological approaches. The most important variable in institutional approaches is the role of the electoral system. Simply put, proportional representation electoral systems offer

Frameworks and data  21 greater space for third parties, while majoritarian single member district systems are hostile environments for such parties. If we compare the relative success of the Green Party of England and Wales in the proportional European parliament elections to its struggles in UK parliamentary (majoritarian first past the post) elections, we can see the effect. However, the electoral system can only tell us part of the story. Prior to 2005, at the national level (and even today at the local level), Taiwan had a Single Non-Transferable Vote with a multiple member district system that operates in a semi-proportional way (Grofman 1999, 378). However, the GPT was unable to win seats at the national level (except the one seat in 1996) and took 18 years to win at the local level in this seemingly friendly system. In fact, the GPT only really started to become competitive at the national level after a more hostile, predominantly majoritarian system was introduced in 2005. In other words, the electoral system cannot explain the significant variation in GPT vote shares since its establishment. The second mainstream approach that Meguid critiques is what she calls sociological theories, which ‘locate the determinants of party success in the salience of the party’s issue(s)’ (2008, 10). For instance, Green Party success is often associated with salience of environmental issues, levels of economic prosperity and proportion of the population holding postmaterialist values (Müller-Rommel 1998). This approach was used in the Teng et al. paper reviewed earlier in this chapter to look at GPT voting in the 2012 election (2015). In Meguid’s book, she attempts to show the limitations of the sociological approach in a range of niche party case studies, including far right, green and ethno-nationalist parties. As I will show in the Chapter 5, the sociological approach does have its uses for explaining GPT support. GPT supporters are disproportionately young, well educated and concerned with environmental and non-economic issues. However, as with the electoral system, sociological approaches alone cannot explain the variations in GPT electoral fortunes over time. If it were solely a matter of growing environmental consciousness, opposition to nuclear power and support for LGBT rights, then we should see a linear pattern of GPT growth. However, as we see in Chapter 4, there has been considerable fluctuation in its electoral fortunes. An alternative to these classic theories is the hybrid framework proposed by Paul Lucardie, which draws on both social movement and political science approaches. He argues that the ‘electoral success of the happy few’ new parties is best understood with reference to their political project, resources and the political opportunity structure (2000, 175). Put simply, new parties need to offer ‘a clear and convincing political project which addresses social problems considered urgent by a significant number of voters’ (176), to have sufficient resources in ‘members, money, management and mass media exposure’ (175) and to operate in a political opportunity structure that is favourable to new party entrants. Although the framework originated with reference to European new parties, I have used it in a number of my articles on small parties and the GPT (Fell 2005b; Fell and Peng 2016). The issue of the GPT’s lack of financial, organisational and human resources was a constant feature in so many of the fieldwork interviews for this project.

22  Introduction, questions and formation Instead, in this book I will apply a framework that builds on Bonnie Meguid’s work on the effect of mainstream party strategies on small parties as well as Jaejae Spoon’s work on small party agency. In Party Competition Between Unequals: Strategies and Electoral Fortunes in Western Europe (2008), Meguid argues that the best way to understand the success of niche parties is through the lens of mainstream party strategies. She suggests that mainstream parties can take dismissive, accommodative or adversarial strategies towards the prophetic parties’ core issues. When mainstream parties adopt dismissive strategies, the niche parties’ core issue is likely to decease in salience and its electoral support will decline. Where the mainstream party adopts accommodative strategies, then the niche party issue may rise in salience, but because the mainstream party may take over issue ownership, the mainstream party, rather than the niche party, should benefit electorally. The best outcome for the niche party is where the mainstream party takes an adversarial approach, as this will raise niche party issue salience, reinforce niche party issue ownership and enhance the small parties’ electoral fortunes. In contrast in Spoon’s Political Survival of Small Parties in Europe, the idea that the fate of small parties is out of their hands is challenged (2011). Spoon centres her analysis on the agency of small parties, highlighting how their strategies can affect their survival even in unfavourable institutional settings. She argues that the key to survival for small parties lies in finding the right balance between the competing interests of vote maximising and policy differentiation. Spoon notes that ‘if a party devotes too much of its efforts to either goal, it will get out of balance, lose its raison d’etre, and die’ (2011, 15). The ways the small parties handle this balancing act are examined through the dimensions of their policy, electoral and communication strategies. Therefore, my framework for explaining electoral fortunes has two dimensions: competing party strategies and small party agency balancing strategies. In addition to the mainstream party strategies suggested by Meguid, I also bring in the strategies of other competing smaller parties. As many of the chapters in this book will show, at times rival small parties have been as damaging to the GPT’s fate as the mainstream parties. Moreover, in addition to the focus on strategies towards niche party issues, the competing parties’ nomination strategies also have an important impact on the viability of the GPT. In other words, the way these rivals poach the GPT’s human resources for government service or as electoral candidates does have a major impact on the GPT’s development. While the strategies of competing parties play an important role in explaining the GPT’s fortunes, I agree with Spoon’s stress on small party agency. Therefore, I also try to operationalise the idea of the GPT dealing or struggling with the balancing act between its core ideology and social movement roots and the importance of actually getting elected (vote maximisation). These strategies are examined by looking at the ability of the GPT to operate as a professional and well-resourced party, as well as to run competitive election campaigns. However, it is essential that the party does not sacrifice its core values in this search for electoral success. In terms of the party operation, key areas that will be looked at include its human

Frameworks and data  23 and financial resources, its development of party branches, its organisational institutionalisation, party unity, relationship with other parties and social movements, its issue strategies and as its overall visibility. The ability to run competitive campaigns will examine whether the party is able to move from mere token campaigns towards the thresholds of competitivity and representation (as discussed in the lifespan framework). This will be examined by looking at a range of campaign case studies, including relatively successful as well as failed campaigns.

Fieldwork and other data The material that I have relied on for this book was assembled over an eight-year period, from December 2012 through to late summer 2020. These fall into the following broad categories: (1) focus groups and interviews; (2) surveys; (3) Central Election Commission data; (4) official GPT sources such as websites and social media; (5) candidate blogs and social media; (6) media sources; and (7) audiovisual material. Focus groups and interviews Unlike for my first book, where the interviews were conducted over a one-year fieldwork period, on this project I made multiple short visits to Taiwan from 2012 to 2018. The vast majority of the interviews were face to face, but in addition a small number were online interviews, particularly for the 2020 campaign. The full list of those interviewed is in Appendix 1. I interviewed over 50 GPT and Trees Party figures, including candidates, convenors and Central Executive Committee members. The format of these included two focus groups as well as numerous interviews. The initial focus groups that started the project in December  2012 included one session for figures that had been involved in the party’s early history and another for those that had participated in the most recent election in 2012. Many of the GPT figures were interviewed more than once over the eight-year research period. In addition, I transcribed two post-election review meetings in 2014 that featured a number of other candidates and campaigners that I had not yet interviewed. In 2017, when the Global Greens Congress was held in Liverpool, I invited delegations from both the GPT and Trees Party to my university and have transcribed their public panel discussions. We also held focus groups for GPT party members in both Taipei and Kaohsiung in 2014, as well as interviewing 11 GPT supporters in 2013. Surveys Surveys make up one of the most used resources in studies on party and electoral politics in Taiwan. However, readers will notice that surveys do not feature prominently in this book. A  problem for small party studies and Indigenous politics studies is that they rarely have sufficient sample sizes to feature in the standard surveys. For instance, the GPT has not been included in the National Chengchi

24  Introduction, questions and formation University Election Study Center’s Trends of Core Political Attitudes section’s Party Preferences survey figures. It was only in the run up to the 2016 elections that the GPT began to appear on some party list voting intention surveys by TVBS and Taiwan Indicator Survey Research. In addition, in recent years the GPT has started to commission its own surveys and use these as a way to raise its visibility. Therefore, surveys will only feature in discussions of the period after 2015. In addition, Peng Yen-wen and I conducted an online survey of GPT supporters in 2016. We asked supporters about how they first got to know about the party, what attracted them to the party, their issue preferences and suggestions for the party going forward. Central Election Commission data Two datasets on the CEC website have proved especially valuable for this research. Firstly, the election results database has been used to provide details of the various GPT vote totals and vote shares since 1996.5 These are the basis for much of the discussion in Chapter 4 that shows the changing electoral fortunes of the parties. Secondly, the CEC’s election gazette database provides the election gazettes sent to all voters in each election.6 These include information on each candidate’s age, education, experience and policy proposals. In addition, where parties have nominated party lists, there is a section for the party’s official policy proposals, as well as the personal information for its party list candidates. Therefore, the election gazette database has been useful for tracking the GPT’s changing issue focus as well as for Chapter 5 (“Who are the GPT?”) Official Green Party sources such as websites and social media The GPT’s official websites have naturally been useful sources of information on the issue emphasis changes over time. In addition, its listing of changes in the composition of key party officer holders (convenors, Central Executive Committee and Central Review Committee members since 2005) offers a picture of the changing balance of power within the party. There are gaps in the official website coverage. For instance, the party’s founding website is still visible but appears to have last been updated in 1997, and there was an official Green Party website used for the 2008 and 2012 campaigns, though most of the earlier material is no longer visible. The current GPT website has news releases from late 2012, though since 2016 it has been updated much less frequently. In addition, the GPT has made heavy use of social media, particularly Facebook, and regularly uses live streaming. Finally, the GPT has often shared international news releases on both the Global Greens and Asia Pacific Greens websites. Candidate blogs and social media Given the lack of mainstream media attention on the GPT, their candidates and activists have also made intensive use of new media to reach supporters and

Frameworks and data 25 potential voters. Therefore, blogs and Facebook represent rich sources of material. For instance, Pan Han-sheng’s blog starts its GPT analysis in 2006 in the runup to the Taipei City Council elections. Of course, one challenge with candidate social media such as Facebook is the sheer volume of material posted by figures such as Wang Hau-yu. Where I have cited Facebook posts, they have only been public posts. Media sources I make use of an extensive range of traditional and online news media reports about the GPT. However, I have made the most use of two sources, the United Daily News database and the Taipei Times archive. The United Daily News (UDN) database allows full text searching back to the early 1950s. It is thus useful to gain a sense of changing media visibility throughout the history of the GPT; in addition, it was important for the coverage of the early period of the party’s history in the 1990s when other online sources are less available. Of course, the UDN is a pro-KMT publication and so is likely to give less attention to parties such as GPT and its related social movements. Therefore, for balance, I also have used the English language Taipei Times archive. The Taipei Times is published by the pro DPP Liberty Times media group and has been operating since 1999. Audio-visual material The advent of YouTube means that there is now a vast amount of video material for research on Taiwanese politics. The GPT’s own YouTube channel, for instance, provides a rich source of election ads, as well as party press events going as far back as 2009. YouTube searches can also generate large numbers of television reports on GPT campaigns and events, as well as numerous videos of GPT figures joining politics talk shows. Although most of the early television talk show appearances were on Public Television Service, it appears that GPT politicians are also increasingly appearing on commercial cable and online news channels as well. There are a large number of Taiwanese documentaries about the country’s social movements, especially on environmental issues. One such example is Gongliao, How Are You? (貢寮你好嗎?), which examines the anti-nuclear protest movement around the planned Fourth Nuclear Power Station and was made by former GPT Central Executive Committee member Tsui Shu-hsin (崔愫欣). Although GPT activists often appear in such social movement documentaries, there has not yet been a documentary on the history of the party itself. The closest there is to a GPT documentary is Lin Show-tsai’s (林謙勇) 2017 film Unfinished Progress (建設未完成), which centres on the GPT candidate Wang Chung-ming and features his 2014 election campaign. Therefore, video material represents an important source for understanding how the GPT’s issue and campaign strategies have evolved over time, particularly in the years after 2008.

26  Introduction, questions and formation

Concluding remarks In this chapter, I have discussed some of the core concepts of the study and how I understand the units of analysis; reviewed the existing literature on the GPT; and introduced the frameworks of analysis I will employ in the study and the fieldwork data that I will use to support my analysis. In the next chapter, I will move on to discuss the starting point of this environmental story, the establishment of the GPT in January 1996 and the Trees Party in 2014.

Notes 1 It should be noted that as a result of the 2017 Political Parties Law, the number of registered parties will be significantly reduced. For instance, in April 2020 the Ministry of Interior announced the dissolution of 170 political parties, including one of the parties featured in this book, the Trees Party. Taipei Times, 30 April 2020, 3. 2 Pan Han-sheng, 17 December 2012. 3 Calvin Wang, 2 January 2014. 4 On the GPT’s website, the bi-lingual Global Greens Charter is here: www.greenparty. org.tw/about/global-greens-charter. 5 CEC Election Database, https://db.cec.gov.tw/histMain.jsp. 6 CEC Election Gazette Database, http://bulletin.cec.gov.tw/.

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Frameworks and data  27 Japan, Korea and Taiwan under the Single Non Transferable Vote. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 375–416. Harmel, Robert and Kenneth Janda. 1994. ‘An Integrated Theory of Party Goals and Party Change.’ Journal of Theoretical Politics, 6(3): 259–287. Harmel, Robert and John Robertson. 1985. ‘Formation and Success of New Parties: A Cross National Analysis.’ International Political Science Review, 6(4): 501–523. Ho, Ming-sho. 2003. ‘The Politics of Anti-Nuclear Protest in Taiwan: A  Case of PartyDependent Movement.’ Modern Asian Studies, 37(3): 683–708. Ho, Ming-sho. 2006. Green Democracy: A Study on Taiwan’s Environmental Movement. Taipei: Socio Publishing. Ho, Ming-sho and Chun-hao Huang. 2017. ‘Movement Parties in Taiwan, 1987–2016.’ Asian Survey, 57(2): 343–367. Hsieh, John Fuh-sheng. 2002. ‘Change and Continuity in Taiwan’s Electoral Politics.’ In John Hsieh and David Newman (eds.), How Asia Votes. New York: Chatham House Publishers, 32–49. Huang, Chia-feng (黃嘉芳). 2014. ‘Spatial Analysis of Green Party Voting and Environmental Protests in Taiwan.’ (環保抗爭與綠黨獲票率之空間分析). MA Thesis, National Taiwan University. Huckshorn, Robert. 1984. Political Parties in America. Monterey: Brooks/Cole. Janda, Kenneth. 1980. Political Parties: A Cross National Survey. New York: Free Press. Jobin, Paul. 2010. ‘Hazards and Protests in the “Green Silicon Island”.’ China Perspectives, 3: 46–62. Kitschelt, Herbert. 2006. ‘Movement Parties.’ In Richard S. Katz and William Crotty (eds.), Handbook of Party Politics. London: Sage, 278–290. Lin, Chiung-chu. 2006. ‘The Evolution of Party Images and Party System in Taiwan, 1992–2004.’ East Asia: An International Quarterly, 23(1): 27–46. Lin, Sheng-Jr (林聖智). 2015. ‘Preliminary Study of Green Party Taiwan Supporters’ Voting Behavior’ (臺灣綠黨支持者投票考量與特性之初探). MA Thesis, National Sun Yat Sen University. Liu, Tsung-Wei. 2002. ‘The Effects of Electoral Laws on Party Competition in Taiwan 1989–1998,’ with particular reference to the single non-transferable vote (SNTV). PhD Thesis, Department of Government, University of Essex, UK. Lucardie, Paul. 2000. ‘Prophets, Purifiers and Prolocutors: Towards a Theory on the Emergence of New Parties.’ Party Politics, 6(2): 175–185. Marshall, James. 2019. What Does Green Mean? The History, People and Ideas of the Green Party in Canada and Abroad. Victoria: Friesen Press. Meguid, Bonnie. 2008. Party Competition between Unequals: Strategies and Electoral Fortunes in Western Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ministry of Interior Parties List. 2019. Available at: https://party.moi.gov.tw/pgms/politics/ party!list.action (accessed November 1, 2019). Müller, Wolfgang C. and Kaare Strøm. 1999. Policy, Office or Votes? How Political Parties in Western Europe Make Hard Decisions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Müller-Rommel, Ferdinand. 1998. ‘The New Challengers: Explaining the Electoral Success of Green and Right-wing Populist Parties in Western Europe.’ European Review, 6(2): 191–202. Nachman, Lev. 2018. ‘Misalignment between Social Movements and Political Parties in Taiwan’s 2016 Election: Not All Grass Roots Are Green.’ Asian Survey, 58(5): 874–897. Nachman, Lev. 2020. ‘From Sunflowers to Suits: How Spatial Openings Affect Movement Party Formation.’ In Thomas Gold and Sebastian Veg (eds.), Sunflowers and Umbrellas:

28  Introduction, questions and formation Social Movements, Expressive Practices, and Political Culture in Taiwan and Hong Kong, 200–227. Pan, Han-sheng. 2012. 綠黨跨越門檻的最後一階 2012選舉結果探討與2016路線展 望 (The Last Step for the GPT to Cross the Threshold: Analysis of the 2012 Election Results and Prospects for 2016) 生態臺灣 (Ecology Taiwan), (35): 73–80. Pedersen, Mogens. 1982. ‘Towards a New Typology of Party Lifespans and Minor Parties.’ Scandinavian Political Studies, 5(1): 1–16. Rigger, Shelley. 2001. From Opposition to Power: Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Rochan, Thomas. 1985. ‘Mobilizers versus Challengers: Towards a Theory of New Party Success.’ International Political Science Review, 6(4): 419–439. Sheng, Shing-yuan and Hsiao-chuan (Mandy) Liao. 2017. ‘Issues, Political Cleavages, and Party Competition in Taiwan.’ In Christopher Achen and T.Y Wang (eds.), The Taiwan Voter. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 98–138. Song, Hung-kuang (宋竑廣). 2011b. 綠黨尋找同志候選人的策略 (GPT’s Strategy to Seek Out LGBT Candidates). 性別平等教育季刊 (Journal of Gender Equality Education), 54期 (2011/07/01): 75–77. Song, Hung-kuang (宋竑廣). 2011a. 同志運動的一種－2010年綠黨同志候選人的參選 (A Kind of LBGT Rights Movement: The Participation of GPT LGBT Candidates in the 2010 Elections). 性別平等教育季刊 55期 (Journal of Gender Equality Education) (2011/07): 71–74. Spoon, Jae-Jae. 2011. Political Survival of Small Parties in Europe. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Sullivan, Jonathan. 2009. ‘Campaign Advertising in Taiwanese Presidential Elections.’ Journal of Contemporary China, 18(61): 675–688. Teng, Chih-sung (鄧志松), Huang Chia-feng (黃嘉芳), Wu Chin-en)  (吳親恩). 2015. ‘Environmental Protest and Green Party Vote Share: An Investigation of Party List Vote in the 2012 Legislative Election.’ Electoral Studies 選舉研究 ； 22卷2期 (2015/11/01): 41–69. Van Haute, Emily (ed.). 2016. Green Parties in Europe. London: Routledge. Wang, C-H., D.L-C. Weng and V.W-C. Wang. 2018. ‘Does Candidate Nomination in Districts Increase Party Votes of Small Parties? Evidence from the 2016 Taiwan Legislative Elections.’ Japanese Journal of Political Science, 19: 461–473. Ware, Alan. 2001. Political Parties and Party Systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press. White, John Kenneth. 2006. ‘What is a Political Party? In Richard Katz and William Crotty (eds.), Handbook of Party Politics. London: Sage, 5–15.

3 Beautiful accidents The formation of Taiwan’s Green Parties

On January 25, 1996, the Founding Assembly for the Green Party Taiwan (GPT) was held. Although its official name in Chinese was literally ‘The Green Localised New (or Fresh) Party’ (綠色本土清新黨), it was agreed that day that the abbreviated party name would simply be the Green Party (綠黨), and it has always used the GPT as its English name.1 This made it Taiwan’s seventy-ninth registered political party. Eighteen years later, on August 10, 2014, the Taiwan Trees Party (樹黨) was established by three former GPT members. This made it the 259th party in Taiwan. There were both similarities and differences in the context of these two ecological party formations. Both occurred at critical moments in Taiwan’s modern political history. The GPT was formed during the 1995–1996 Cross-Strait Crisis, when China conducted a series of missile tests and military exercises close to Taiwan aimed at influencing Taiwan’s foreign policy and elections. It was a crucial time in Taiwan’s democratisation process, as in December  1995 it had held its second direct parliamentary election and in March 1996 was due to hold its first direct presidential election, as well as National Assembly elections. This was the moment when organisations such as Freedom House first classified Taiwan as a full democracy but also perhaps the closest to military conflict breaking out in the Taiwan Strait since the late 1950s. The Trees Party was formed at an equally momentous moment, as civil society won some crucial victories against the conservative KMT government. Months earlier, the Sunflower Movement’s occupation of Taiwan’s parliament had ended, resulting in the government postponing legislation on a controversial cross-Strait trade deal. A student-led movement rather than the main opposition party had derailed the seemingly unstoppable push towards greater political and economic integration between China and Taiwan. Weeks after the Sunflower occupation, the government backtracked on another core civil society demand and mothballed the controversial Fourth Nuclear Power Station. Calls for a shakeup of Taiwan’s party system were even louder in 2014 than 1996, and the ruling KMT would suffer historic local election defeats at the end of 2014. Nevertheless, the reactions to these two party formations were markedly different. In 1996, the establishment of the GPT was celebrated and supported by a diverse coalition of social movements. Although the Trees Party was formed by

30  Introduction, questions and formation social movement activists, its movement support base was much narrower, with a focus on tree protection and animal rights. Since the central figure of the Trees Party had been the closest thing the GPT had to a political star, there were widespread concerns that the new party would damage the prospects of the GPT and give voters the impression of a divided environmental movement. There was also much greater media interest in the GPT’s formation in 1996 than the Trees Party. The United Daily Evening News reported on the GPT’s establishment on the day itself, and the next day there was more detailed coverage in the main newspapers.2 In contrast, it was not until September 6, 2014, so almost a month after the Trees Party’s establishment, that the United Daily News even first mentioned the party, while the Taipei Times had a feature on the Trees Party on September 8.3 The aim of this chapter is to tell the stories of how and why these new parties were established. It is the first of the book’s ‘why’ questions that I will examine in detail. Thus, the focus is on the process up to the threshold of declaration on my party lifespan framework, leaving the post-establishment elections and issue campaigns for subsequent chapters. There is a rich literature on what explains new party or movement party formation, and so I am interested to see how these two cases fit in those frameworks. Similarly, from a comparative perspective, did the formation of the Green Parties in Taiwan follow similar or different patterns from those of ecological parties in other countries?

Why do movement parties form? At this point, a key distinction needs to be made: though both are new Green Parties, the GPT can best be categorised as a new start-up party, while the Trees Party can be viewed as a splinter or fission party coming out of the GPT. This means that the literature explaining the formation of the two types is rather different. Much of the work on party fission is centred on explaining the decision to switch party affiliation as the result of incumbent politicians’ ambition to win re-election (Heller and Mershon 2009). This will naturally need some adjustment, as none of the Trees Party founders had previously won elections they had contested. In Herbert Kitschelt’s review article on movement parties, he argues that these parties are most likely to appear where (1) collective interests are intensely held by a constituency willing to articulate their demands through disruptive, extrainstitutional activities, (2) established parties make no effort to embrace such interests for fear of dividing their own electoral constituency and (3) the formal and informal thresholds of political representation are moderate to low. (2006, 282) Although the focus of Nachman’s chapter is the split of the Taiwan Citizen Union into the NPP and SDP in late 2014 and early 2015, it does have relevance for the Trees Party case. He raises questions about the usefulness of Kitschelt’s approach on the Taiwan Citizen Union case and instead suggests the split was down more to

Beautiful accidents  31 conflicts of personalities and over strategic approaches rather than issues (Nachman 2020). Although Margit Tavits’ studies look at new parties broadly rather than just green or movement parties, they are nevertheless useful, as she has looked at their emergence in both old and newer European democracies (2006, 2008). In both types of democracies, she finds support for Kitschelt’s third condition, something Tavits terms as when the costs of entry are low. Key measures include the costs and ease of party registration and the permissiveness of the electoral system. In addition, Tavits stresses that where the benefits of electoral office are higher, then new party entrance is more likely. For new democracies, though, she proposes that new parties are less likely to emerge as democracies grow older. However, in the Taiwan case there does not seem to be a linear trend in the gradual decrease in new party formation as democracy matures; instead, there have been relatively quiet periods and then waves of new party formation. At least based on pure numbers of new parties rather than relevant parties, new party formation actually appears to be much higher in the third decade since democratisation started than the first or second decades. Lastly, van Haute’s book on European Green Parties reveals some broad trends in the origins of such parties to be compared to Taiwan’s cases. Firstly, she cites the importance of ‘the emergence of new political issues revolving around the environmental concerns and opposition to nuclear energy policy but also around pacifism, human rights and radical democracy’ (2016, 316). Secondly, she notes how ‘as they were not adequately addressed by existing parties. It opened up the political space for the emergence of Green Parties’ (316). She also points out that as most parties had their roots outside of parliament, often the transition from movement to party ‘was a matter of debate and generated some tensions’ (316). Lastly, she explains how, ‘in most countries, the establishment of a political party was preceded by one or more attempts to organize politically’ (316). As we will see in the next section, in Taiwan the initial attempt to establish a Green Party was not successful.

The stillborn Green Party The story of the Taiwanese Green Parties could have been quite different. In a footnote in Ho Ming-sho’s book Green Democracy, he notes how in 1995 Jay Fang (方儉), the Secretary General of the Taiwan Green Consumers’ Foundation (綠色消費者基金會), had proposed to form a Green Party. However, because he did not follow through with the plan, the party preparation work switched to the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union (TEPU) (Ho 2006, 193). In a brief email, Fang mentioned that what he initiated in 1995 was quite different from the GPT in terms of ideas and people.4 This raised my curiosity, as this story had never been mentioned during my interviews, so I followed up to check press reports from the time. It turned out there was as much, if not more, media coverage of the preparations for this Green Party than the actual GPT. On July 7, 1995, the front page of United Daily Evening News reported that environmental groups had decided to form a

32  Introduction, questions and formation new party called the Green Party and that they would register with the Ministry of Interior a week later.5 From various reports, it is clear that Fang’s vision of the Green Party had both similarities and differences from what eventually became the GPT. He often mentioned the German Greens in his press comments and talked of possible cooperation with international Green Parties.6 It was clear that elections would be a party focus, and it was announced that the party would join not only the December 1995 Legislative Yuan elections but also the 1996 National Assembly and presidential elections. Organisationally, Fang was envisioning a very alternative party model. He often mentioned the idea of it being a flexible party (柔性政黨), with features such as no party headquarters, no local branches, no party leader and no such thing as expelling party members.7 His ideas on membership were also creative. To become a member, you would just need to sign a Green Declaration to pledge implementing environmental protection in your daily life. After paying the NT$1000 membership fee, rather than receiving a membership card, they would work with a bank to issue collaborative credit cards.8 Also, he noted that it would be a future-looking party, as there would be no age limit, so that children could join. Studies of Taiwanese party politics tend to focus on a national identity spectrum that locates parties according to their preference for Taiwanese independence or unification with China (Achen and Wang 2017). However, Fang clearly wanted to explain his Green Party would take a different approach, stating that ‘unlike the other three parties, there would be no unification or independence.’9 Other issue references focused on environmental protection, human rights and gender equality. Interestingly, when challenged on his dual identity as a party figure and an environmental organisation member, he explained that it would be necessary to draw a clear line of distinction between the Green Party and environmental groups. In other words, he did not envisage the party being a mouthpiece for environmental groups.10 In the build-up to the party’s establishment it suffered a setback, as Fang was assaulted and injured while protesting at an urban planning committee meeting, and in the chaos he was robbed of the NT$500,000 he had collected for the party’s initial operation.11 However, the founding ceremony was held at the open-air music stage of the Taipei New Park on August 26, 1995. The event was even featured on that day’s evening news on Taiwan Television (台視). The 12-year-old daughter of party initiator Chen Yu-feng (陳玉峰), Chen Hsiang-yun (陳相云), declared that ‘Now the Green Party is Officially Established.’12 Perhaps because the venue was too large, the reporter did not seem impressed with the turnout of close to 100 people at the ceremony. Green Party figures did try to explain away her doubts by telling her that initially the German Greens only had 29 people and that many potential candidates had already contacted them about standing in the upcoming elections. After August 28, though, the media reports on Fang’s Green Party went silent.13 In the final piece, it is clear that the journalist, Chen Pi-hua (陳碧華), believed the outlook for the party was not optimistic. She notes the limited number of people at the founding ceremony, its lack of political stars and, interestingly, that ‘very

Beautiful accidents  33 few members of environmental groups have joined the Green Party.’14 The next time the party was mentioned was on the day of the founding of the actual GPT on January 25, 1996, and it was explained how Fang had applied to register the Green Party at the Ministry of Interior but that the application had not been approved.1516

A beautiful accident or premature birth? The Founding Assembly of the GPT was held on January  25, 1996. The event attracted coverage in the United Daily Evening News on the day; this was followed by more detailed analysis the next day.17 The report noted the diverse makeup of the social movement organisations involved in establishing the party, including environmental, social welfare and women’s groups. It would appear much was achieved at the assembly. A Convenor was elected as were the Central Executive Committee and Central Review Committee. This thus set the pattern for the organisational structure for party decision making that largely remains intact to this day. Environmentalist Professor Kao Cheng-yan (高成炎) was elected Convenor and would remain the most influential figure for the next decade. The party constitution and name were approved after lively debate. Given that the National Assembly elections were less than two months away, much of the focus of the press analysis was on the party’s nomination plans. As promised, the GPT began to announce its candidate lists in the next few days. These candidates and the actual 1996 campaign will be discussed in subsequent chapters. That day, the GPT also issued its Green Declaration of Green Party Taiwan’s Founding Assembly (1996), which gives a sense of the thinking behind the party’s foundation as well as its vision for the future. Firstly, it explained how ‘the goal of changing national policies and legislation is always of high priority. This is why the social movements cannot be without political dimension.’ It went on to point out how initially social movements had supported the DPP but they [DPP] have changed their strategy and currently implemented the policy of total compromise with the existing structure in order to be elected to office. This transformation in position of the opposition parties from opposition to compromise was so fundamental that most social movement organizations started to question the opposition parties and terminate their relationship with them. This corresponds with Ho’s argument that the GPT’s formation was part of the environmental movement’s ‘effort to reassert movement autonomy’ (2003, 701). This was something that did feature in the press reactions to the party foundation, with one article titled ‘Social Movement Groups Separation and Threaten the DPP’s Electoral Prospects.’18 Although the DPP leaders publicly welcomed the GPT’s foundation, Ho confirms they did think it posed ‘an alarming threat to the DPP at first’ (2003, 703). The declaration notes how, over the previous year, social movements had established the Social Movement Solidarity Alert ‘to push the Legislative Yuan,

34  Introduction, questions and formation Taiwan’s parliament, to speed up the legislation of the laws on environmental protection, human rights protection, social welfare, education and any other issues that are of concern by the social movement organizations.’ It then went on to explain two of the key themes for the upcoming election: ‘Parliament Monitoring Organization and the proposal of Political Waste Recycling.’ In other words, though it regarded the National Assembly as a discredited body (political waste), it hoped to use its resources for the benefit of social movements. Its candidates therefore pledged that, if elected, they would donate 80 percent of their salaries to the Parliament Monitoring Organisation and social movement organisations. This civil society parliamentary monitoring body would later be officially established in the summer of 1996, and since 2007, it has operated under the name of the Citizen Congress Watch (公民監督國會聯盟). In terms of the party’s core values, the declaration noted, ‘we desire to reaffirm the principle of ecological sustainability and social justice for green politics.’ It particularly highlighted its opposition to the government’s development at all costs economic policies. Lastly, it stated that ‘Taiwan’s green movement is simply a small part of the global green movement for ecological conservation.’ In fact, it would begin its engagement with the global green movement within weeks of its establishment. Looking back well over a decade and a half after founding of the party, two of the early party figures offered their reflections on the event. While Kao Chengyan described it as ‘a beautiful accident,’ Lai Fen-lan (賴芬蘭) saw it more as a ‘premature birth.’19 Lai argued that the German Greens had emerged from much stronger grassroots organisations and benefitted from extensive theoretical debates and struggles. She also praised their stress on capacity building, such as training new generations of activists. She lamented on how she had tried unsuccessfully to bring in German experiences to the GPT in the party’s early years.20

Explaining the long- and short-term causes of the party’s establishment To understand the formation of the GPT and the timing of this event, we need to consider a number of long- and short-term factors. As Taiwan moved towards the end of its martial law era, environmentalism emerged as a national issue. The environmental movement became a part of the democratisation movement and began to develop a close relationship with the newly established DPP. When the DPP was formed in 1986, it included an antinuclear pledge in its party charter. For some DPP politicians, supporting environmental causes was a matter of principle, but for others it was equally a means of gaining electoral support against the ruling and better-resourced KMT. Ho Ming-sho notes how the DPP and TEPU worked together on many environmental issues and how in places DPP politicians and TEPU even shared offices and staff (Ho 2003, 695). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the KMT took a hard-line, pro-nuclear approach and attempted to crack down on social movement protests, which increased the partisan nature of the environmental issue. In other words, to

Beautiful accidents  35 use Meguid’s terms, the KMT’s adversarial strategy reinforced the DPP’s ownership of the environmental issue and cemented the DPP–environmental movement alliance. Sunhyuk Kim notes how the development of environmentalism was quite different in South Korea compared to Taiwan (Kim 2000). While environmentalism in Taiwan emerged during the democratic transition, in Korea it emerged after democratisation. He also points out that while there was an alliance between the environmental movement and opposition party in Taiwan, in Korea such groups had not established close links to political parties. One area where the environmental movement was able to work with the DPP was in Taipei County, where the DPP’s You Ching (尤清) had been elected as county magistrate in 1989 and won re-election in 1993. With anti-nuclear figure Chang Kuo-long (張國龍) as his Secretary General, the county government tried to use a range of administrative measures to stop the Fourth Nuclear Power Station, such as refusing to issue construction permits. Moreover, the first referendum on the Fourth Nuclear Power Station was held on November 27, 1994, in Taipei County. However, these local efforts were unable to prevent the pro-nuclear central government from continuing pushing the project forward. In the process that led to the establishment of the GPT, 1994 was a critical year. Kao explained that ‘although on the surface the party was founded in the year 1996, the main founding members of the party were basically from the 1994 environmental activism.’21 According to Kao, as important as the Taipei County referendum was their promotion of recall votes against four pro-nuclear KMT legislators in Taipei County, held on the same day. The KMT was clearly concerned by this social movement mobilisation, as it raised the turnout threshold from onethird to half the electorate prior to the recall vote. Among those KMT legislators, the highest number of votes supporting recall were for Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), who would later go on to be the KMT’s presidential candidate for the 2020 election. A total of 443,023 people, or 85 percent of those voting, supported his recall, but this failed to reach the 50 percent threshold for recall.22 According to Kao, ‘at that time we handled this very successfully.’23 This experience helped maintain the anti-nuclear momentum, especially as when the DPP’s Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was elected Taipei City mayor in December 1994, he also pledged to hold another referendum on the Fourth Nuclear Power Station for Taipei City, to be held on the same day as the presidential election in 1996. Kao recalled that many people had encouraged him to stand for Legislative Yuan in December 1995, but ‘it was mainly because my wife opposed it! All my family opposed it. So I did not stand.’24 Despite the areas of cooperation with the DPP, we saw in the GPT’s founding declaration that a core factor motivating the party’s creation was a loss of trust in the DPP. Lai Fen-lan said she ‘felt betrayed by the DPP’s change of heart towards environmental protection’ (Grano 2015, 50). Kao recalled that ‘it looked like the DPP would soon come to power and so it was moving away from social movements.’25 Similarly, GPT founder Chang Chi-huang (張琦凰) explained how at that time, ‘everyone felt the KMT and DPP were becoming ever closer and that the only difference was whether they were localised.’26 Although the gap between

36  Introduction, questions and formation the DPP and the environmental movement would grow wider after the GPT’s establishment, according to the party’s International Affairs Officer, Linda Arrigo, a key turning point came in 1994 when, on a crucial vote, the DPP failed to block a KMT budget motion on the Fourth Nuclear Power Station.27 Arrigo and Puleston also note there were allegations that a number of DPP legislators had been bought off by Taipower, the operator of Taiwan’s nuclear plants (2006, 177). The relationship between the DPP and environmentalists was one of political exchange; however, by the mid-1990s, some activists, such as GPT founder Hung Yu-cheng (洪裕程), felt the DPP was taking advantage of them (Ho 2003, 703). As a result of the growing distrust and dissatisfaction with the mainstream parties, there were increasing calls for an alternative party. Chang Chi-huang dates this sentiment even earlier than Kao, stating ‘from 1992 to 1993 there were already many voices saying that we want more than the DPP and KMT in Taiwan. So people were talking about a third force.’28 Interestingly, though, the example of a new party emerging that she mentioned was the NP and not the Workers’ or Chinese Social Democratic Parties that had contested elections between 1989 and 1992. Both Chang and Kao believed that riding on the wave of social movement activism meant that their new party had a chance of success. Party founders provided slightly different versions of its creation. Kao explained how this ‘beautiful accident’ came about, saying, ‘these three people were drinking coffee one day and came up with the idea and then came to find me.’29 Those three were Chang Yi-shan (張益贍), Chang Chi-huang, and Hong Yu-cheng, of whom the latter two had been heavily involved in the earlier recall campaigns. Apart from the idea that social movements needed their own elected representatives, the other key point was the idea that though the National Assembly was a political waste, its resources could be used for the benefit of social movements. Pointing at Chang Chi-huang, Kao explained that ‘the people pushing this case were the victims of this beautiful young lady.’30 He also recalled that he got the idea of ‘political representatives’ (政治代言人) of social movements from a book given to him by Weng Hsiu-ling (翁秀綾) from the Homemakers United Federation. Hung Yu-cheng, who was the party’s founding Secretary General, had a slightly different version, suggesting it was less accidental (2000, 11–14). He had been involved in a series of student and environmental movements since his first year at National Taiwan University in 1989–1990. He recalled how at that time some teachers in TEPU brought back some English books about green politics. At that time we had a student association and we started translating and discussing these books. So we became aware of the Green Party and green politics.31 He explained that the concept that would become the GPT emerged in a pub in the spring of 1995. They then took this thick political proposal document to lobby a large number of social movement group leaders to join. According to Hung, this process took a year and over a hundred large and small meetings before they

Beautiful accidents  37 finally reached a consensus on establishing the GPT to contest the 1996 National Assembly election (2000, 11–14). One key point of contention was what the party’s name should be. The initial idea was that it would be called the Green Taiwan National Assembly Political Waste Recycling Party, coming to 17 characters in Chinese (綠色台灣國大政治 廢物利用資源回收黨). Kao also noted that, originally, they saw it as a temporary party rather than something long-term. However, the Ministry of Interior rejected this, saying ‘this was unacceptable and that they were being mischievous.’32 Interestingly, according to the United Daily News report, one reason for the Ministry of Interior’s rejection was the use of Taiwan in the party title, as ‘this would make it a local rather than national party.’33 In the end, they settled on Green Localised New Party (綠色本土清新黨) as a compromise to satisfy the Ministry of Interior. Chang recalled that, at first, they did not dare call themselves the Green Party, so they settled on something that sounded like it.34 As Kao explained, the 17-character name ‘has Green as the first character and Party as the last character.’35

The establishment of the Trees Party: an avoidable party split or a brand-new environmental party? There was far less fanfare surrounding the establishment of the Trees Party in August  2014 than either the GPT or even Jay Fang’s Green Party in 1995. Although the party’s official founding date on its website is August 10, 2014, the Ministry of Interior lists August 26 as the date the party’s full registration was recorded. The Taipei Times also reported August 26 as the founding date in its feature piece on the party on September 8. The piece reported that the Trees Party pledged to ‘represent the interests of trees and wildlife that do not have the ability or right to vote.’36 Trees Party founder Pan Han-sheng explained that ‘our goal is not only to break the blue–green political deadlock, but to also break the destruction of trees and wildlife.’37 The first United Daily News report on the party was on September 6, 2014, and here the focus was more on the fact that the new party had nominated 20 candidates in time for the registration deadline of September 5. Interestingly, this report claimed the party had been established in May 2014!38 An initial question to be addressed is whether the Trees Party should be regarded as a new party or as a splinter party from the GPT. When interviewing Pan, he argued that the crucial point is that the Trees Party is not breaking away from the GPT. Of course there are a few from the GPT in the party’s core but if we look at the total of party members, Central Executive Committee members, candidates, and what we actually do, then the GPT proportion is not as high as people think.39 Similarly, in his Facebook post explaining the Trees Party’s foundation, he stated ‘it is a brand new ecological party.’40 In contrast, the GPT’s Co-Convenor at the time, Lee Ken-cheng, viewed it quite differently, stating, ‘it’s breaking away,

38  Introduction, questions and formation it’s obvious.’41 According to the Trees Party’s Wikipedia page, the three party founders were Pan Han-sheng, Pan’s older brother Pan Han-chiang (潘翰疆) and Sheng I-che (冼義哲).42 While Pan Han-sheng had been the GPT’s most wellknown politician since 2006, his brother had been a Central Executive Committee member, and Sheng had built up a youthful and active GPT party base in Penghu. Therefore, it is understandable why most people did see it as a GPT breakaway. I found quite different reactions among GPT figures to Pan Han-sheng’s departure to form the Trees Party. The first to be told were GPT Central Executive Committee member Chang Yu-ching (張育憬) and Central Review Committee member Robin Winkler. Chang recalled the dinner where they had finished their pizzas and were about to have ice cream when Pan took out his laptop and explained his Trees Party project.43 Moreover, by this stage Pan had already registered the party at the Ministry of Interior. When they tried to persuade him to change his mind, Pan explained he already had candidates for every city council district in Taipei. Winkler described his reaction at the time: ‘I was really saddened by it, torn by it.’44 Chang’s view was that the party should have space for the distinct personalities and styles of Lee and Pan. She explained that ‘for the stability of the GPT we need Lee Ken-cheng but in order to expand our electoral market, we especially need Pan Han-sheng.’45 This view stands in stark contrast to Lee himself, who commented afterwards that for the GPT their departure is not a bad thing. In my view I feel they were a burden not an asset for the GPT. People that have a deep understanding of the operation of the GPT know that they were a burden not an asset.46 There were similarities in the timing of the Trees Party’s foundation with that of the GPT in 1996. Both were established just in time to meet the candidate registration deadlines. In the Trees Party case, this was early September 2014. As Pan recalled, ‘at the time of founding [the party] it was very rushed.’47 So how do we best explain the emergence of the Trees Party at this time? Pan argued that there were two main forces behind the new party. One was the tree and animal protection movement, in which the Pan brothers had long been heavily involved, and the second was the Youth Occupy Politics (青年佔領政治) group. Pan had originally been advising the latter group and encouraged them to stand for the GPT. The problem was that the GPT’s more institutionalised nomination system was challenging for young political newcomers, especially the citizen signature and NGO endorsement requirements. The story now turns to the other Trees Party founder, Sheng I-che, who had already been in the GPT for a number of years. He had hoped to incorporate the Youth Occupy Politics project into the GPT, particularly its objectives of reducing the voting age to 18 and encouraging more young people to stand for election. In a speech at my university, Sheng explained how he had a secret meeting with the new GPT Co-Convenor Lee Ken-cheng in Kaohsiung. He argued that in the aftermath of the Sunflower Movement, it was important to bring more younger people

Beautiful accidents  39 into politics and to work with the Sunflower activists. However, Lee completely rejected Sheng’s proposals. This was how Sheng recalled what happened: I have to tell you the truth, as when I went back to Taichung from Kaohsiung, that night I cried a lot. I felt lost. I had worked for the GPT four or five years. I had tried so hard to make the party grow. I felt upset and angry. I felt disappointed because I felt this GPT is no longer the GPT that I knew. They are still doing things to hurt the people on my side. The GPT expelled the Sheng sect. We call it faction. But I do not have any faction. I just have some friends and we joined the GPT together. They thought it was a faction. So, they kicked us out.48 Sheng thus started talking to what he called the ‘Taiwan Tree Huggers,’ and after two months of discussion, they decided to form the party. As Sheng recalled, ‘we said if you want to change politics in Taiwan, then we should participate in local elections. It’s the best way to save democracy. So that is why we founded the Trees Party.’49 In addition, the GPT’s electoral strategy, or lack thereof, also contributed significantly to Pan and Sheng’s decision. Sheng recalled his disappointment when Lee told him that he was not that interested in the upcoming local elections in 2014, as the priority was the 2016 national parliamentary election.50 Similarly, Pan recalled that despite the earthquake in Taiwanese politics caused by the Sunflower Movement, the GPT was not talking about electoral strategy for the local elections. He explained how he prepared a document of his analysis of earlier elections and a framework for election strategy for the GPT Central Executive Committee, but it was completely ignored. What was especially worrying for Pan was that it looked like there would be no GPT nominations in Taipei City in 2014, the region where the GPT had long had its greatest support and electoral presence. Pan explained that ‘if you do not do well in the 2014 local elections, then 2016 (national elections) will be impossible.’51 Robin Winkler also raised a further development that helped push out the Pan brothers. Lee Ken-cheng gave an interview to the magazine the Journalist (新新聞) in which he was highly critical of the old operating style of the GPT. In that piece, Lee stated, ‘in the past it (GPT) gave people the impression of rashly and casually looking for candidates.’52 Although Pan was not mentioned by name, Winkler recalled ‘that had set off some fireworks within the party.’53 In other words, by repudiating the old GPT, Lee was disowning Pan. Could the formation of the Trees Party have been avoided? Chang Yu-ching believed that she could perhaps have avoided this if Pan had told them earlier. In the dinner meeting, she had said they could have incorporated a Trees Party Branch within the GPT, but of course by then the Trees Party had already been formed. Overall, it looks like both Pan and Sheng could have remained in the party if the party decision makers had tried. But Lee’s comment about Pan being a burden on the GPT suggests he wanted to get rid of Pan and his style of GPT operations. The charismatic Sheng also had the potential to be another political star,

40  Introduction, questions and formation but his style of operation did not fit with Lee’s vision of the GPT, so he was also pushed out. This at least was the interpretation of party founder Kao Cheng-yan, who stated, ‘I know that Pan Han-sheng was kicked out.’54 Yu Wan-ju, who had been Co-Convenor with Lee in 2014, explained what happened in these terms, When Lee Ken-cheng and his people came back they were dissatisfied with what Pan Han-sheng did in the past. So all dialogues and all the weapons were aimed at Pan Han-sheng. I  did say to Lee Ken-cheng, that it wasn’t necessary for him to do that to Pan. Pan was misunderstood due to the time period and the background during that time. He had tried to make the best decisions for the GPT at that time and in the circumstances. The GPT did not have money and all the people who supported it financially suffered badly in the end. But still they decided to purge him. It’s a very serious word but they purged Pan Han-sheng. So he had no other choice but to establish the Trees Party.55 Yu also bitterly recalled how Lee used another Central Executive Committee member, Wu Min-hsuan (吳銘軒). He was Lee Ken-cheng’s hitman, he kept attacking people like Pan Hansheng, me, Hsu Chan-chuan (徐嬋娟), basically all the people who worked hard for the GPT before. . . . Isn’t it odd for such a young party member to attack so many older members?56

Conclusions In this chapter, I introduced three cases of ecological party formation in Taiwan, two of which crossed the threshold of declaration. The chapter has also given a taste of the political environment at the time of party foundations, as well as some of the voices of participants in the process. In subsequent chapters, we will hear much more from Kao, Lee, Pan, Chang, Sheng, Winkler, Yu and others that have first appeared here. Before moving on, though, we need to return to the core questions of this chapter. In other words, how do these Taiwanese cases fit in with the theoretical frameworks and comparative experiences of other Green Parties? Both the GPT and the Trees Party emerged at a time of very high social movement activism, thus fulfilling Kitschelt’s first condition for movement formation. Although thresholds for political representation did not feature much in my interviews regarding these party formations, these cannot be entirely discounted. In Taiwan, apart from the minor quibbles over the party name with the Ministry of Interior, registering a party is relatively straightforward. Moreover, both parties were established in the run-up to elections with relatively low thresholds. In other words, they were contesting elections using the semi-proportional SNTV electoral system, which offered more space for smaller parties than those under first past the post.

Beautiful accidents  41 The role of new political issues and the way that existing parties embraced such issues reveals some variation in the two cases. When the GPT was formed, environmental issues were not new and had already been captured by one of the mainstream parties (DPP) for almost a decade. It was the belief that the DPP could no longer be trusted on many social movement issues by the mid-1990s that pushed the activists to create the GPT. In other words, the GPT had some of the elements of a purifier party and some of a new prophetic party (Lucardie 2000). On the one hand, it was like a purifier, breaking away as the DPP was seen as betraying its founding environmentalist ideology. On the other hand, like a prophetic party, it did not nominate politicians defecting from mainstream parties; instead, its candidates were activists without prior electoral experience. However, one commonality the GPT’s foundation does have with European ecological parties was the core role of anti-nuclear campaigning. In addition, like many of its European counterparts, the GPT was not a single-issue group and instead promoted a diverse range of social movement causes. The Trees Party is closer to the purifier model of new party. The issues involved in the formation of the Trees Party (tree protection and youth political representation) were a mix of new and old. However, in both cases, the GPT had rejected making these core appeals, contributing to the decision by Pan and Sheng to create a new party. Since the Trees Party was at least partially a splinter party, the case also engages with party switching theories. As mentioned earlier, the key assumption is that incumbent politicians’ desire to win re-election is the main motivating factor for changing (or not changing) party affiliation. But this does not apply neatly in cases where the politicians had never previously won election. However, for the three party founders, it is inconceivable the GPT would have nominated them had they stayed in the party. So, to maintain their political careers, they had to leave, either to stand as independents or, as we saw, to create a new party. In other words, Heller and Mershon’s argument on the centrality of political ambition does, with a slight adjustment, work in such cases. A final point that comes through strongly in the Trees Party case, echoing Nachman’s work on Taiwan Citizen Union, is the centrality of inner-party power struggles in understanding splinter party formation. Essentially, what pushed Sheng and Pan out of the GPT was not primarily ideological differences with the Lee-led GPT but rather a clash of personalities and completely different ideas over party strategy. Bitter inner-party power struggles will be a key theme in many of the subsequent chapters in this book.

Notes 1 United Daily Evening News, 25 January 1996, 4. 2 UDN Evening News, 25 January 1996, 4; United Daily News (UDN), 26 January 1996, 4. 3 Loa Iok-sin, ‘Tree Party Aims to Speak for Trees, Wildlife, Youth,’ Taipei Times, 8 September 2014, 3; UDN Evening News, 6 September 2014, B1 (Taipei). 4 Jay Fang, email, 30 July 2013. 5 UDN Evening News, 7 July 1995, 1.

42  Introduction, questions and formation 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

UDN Evening News, 10 July 1995, 2. UDN Evening News, 28 August 1995, 17. UDN Evening News, 10 July 1995, 2. Ibid. UDN Evening News, 28 August 1995, 17. UDN Evening News, 12 August 1995, 7. Economic Daily (經濟日報), 27 August 1995, 3. One of the only exceptions I  found was a report in October  1995 on a court case concerning illegal golf course development, in which Fang is listed as the Secretary General of the Green Party. UDN Evening News, 25 October 1995, 7. UDN Evening News, 28 August 1995, 17. UDN Evening News, 26 January 1996, 4. According to GPT founder Hung Yu-cheng (洪裕程), a further attempt to create a Green Party occurred at approximately the same time. In this case, the idea of establishing a Green Party to bring together two independent presidential candidates was discussed, but ultimately they ended up running separate campaigns (Hung 2000, 13). UDN Evening News, 26 January 1996, 4. Ibid. Lai Fen-lan, 17 December 2012; Kao Cheng-yan, 20 December 2012. Lai did not use the term premature birth, but this was how her analysis was interpreted by Pan Hansheng at the time. Lai Fen-lan, 17 December 2012. Kao Cheng-yan, 20 December 2012. UDN Evening News, 28 November 1994, 1. Kao Cheng-yan, 26 December 2014. Ibid. Ibid. Chang Chi-huang, 20 December 2012. The term localised here refers to a more Taiwancentred position on the national identity spectrum. Linda Arrigo, emailed letter, 12 February 2013. Chang Chi-huang, 20 December 2012. Kao Cheng-yan, 20 December 2012. Ibid. Hung Yu-cheng, 14 November 2019. Kao Cheng-yan, 20 December 2012. UDN Evening News, 25 January 1996, 4. Chang Chi-huang, 20 December 2012. Kao Cheng-yan, 20 December 2012. Loa Iok-sin,  ‘Tree Party Aims to Speak for Trees, Wildlife, Youth,’ Taipei Times, 8 September 2014, 3. Ibid. UDN Evening News, 6 September 2014, B2 (Tainan). Pan Han-sheng, 19 December 2014. Pan Han-sheng, Facebook post, 9 September 2014. Lee Ken-cheng, 4 January 2015. On the ‘About us’ page on the Trees Party website, it lists the Wikipedia page, https:// zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A8%B9%E9%BB%A8. Chang Yu-ching, 27 December 2014. Robin Winkler, 8 January 2016. Chang Yu-ching, 27 December 2014. Lee Ken-cheng, 4 January 2015. Pan Han-sheng, 19 December 2014. Sheng I-che, SOAS lecture, 4 April 2017. Ibid.

Beautiful accidents  43 50 Ibid. 51 Pan Han-sheng, 19 December 2014. 52 Lu Yi-jung (呂苡榕), ‘Lee Ken-cheng Leads the GPT from the Clouds Back to the Grassroots’ (李根政帶領綠黨從雲端回到草根), The Journalist, 25 February 2014. 53 Robin Winkler, 8 January 2016. 54 Kao Cheng-yan, 26 December 2014. 55 Yu Wan-ju, 3 January 2017. 56 Ibid.

References Achen, Christopher H. and T.Y. Wang (eds.). 2017.  The Taiwan Voter. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Arrigo, Linda G. and Gaia Puleston. 2006. ‘The Environmental Movement in Taiwan after 2000: Advances and Dilemmas.’ In Dafydd Fell, Henning Klöter and Bi-yu Chang (eds.),  What Has Changed? Taiwan Before and After the Change in Ruling Parties. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. Green Declaration of Green Party Taiwan’s Founding Assembly. 25 January 1996. Available at: http://gptaiwan.yam.org.tw/english_version/self_help.html Heller, William and Carol Mershon. 2009. ‘Introduction: Legislative Party Switching, Parties, and Party Systems.’ In William Heller and Carol Mershon (eds.), Political Parties and Legislative Party Switching. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 3–28. Ho, Ming-sho. 2003. ‘The Politics of Anti-Nuclear Protest in Taiwan: A  Case of PartyDependent Movement.’ Modern Asian Studies, 37(3): 683–708. Ho, Ming-sho. 2006. Green Democracy: A Study on Taiwan’s Environmental Movement. Taipei: Socio Publishing. Hung, Yu-cheng. 2000. ‘Movement Life Dwelt in/on Homelessness.’ Unpublished MA Thesis, National Dong Hwa University, Graduate Institute of Ethnic Relations and Cultures. Kim, Sunhyuk. 2000. ‘Democratization and Environmentalism: South Korea and Taiwan in Comparative Perspective.’ Journal of Asian and African Studies, 35(3): 287–302. Kitschelt, Herbert. 2006. ‘Movement Parties.’ In Richard S. Katz and William Crotty (eds.), Handbook of Party Politics. London: Sage, 278–290. Lucardie, Paul. 2000. ‘Prophets, Purifiers and Prolocutors: Towards a Theory on the Emergence of New Parties.’ Party Politics, 6(2): 175–185. Nachman, Lev. 2020. ‘From Sunflowers to Suits: How Spatial Openings Affect Movement Party Formation.’ In Thomas Gold and Sebastian Veg (eds.), Sunflowers and Umbrellas: Social Movements, Expressive Practices, and Political Culture in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Berkeley: University of California Press, 200–227. Tavits, Margit. 2006. ‘Party System Change: Testing a Model of New Party Entry.’ Party Politics, 12(1): 99–119. Tavits, Margit. 2008. ‘Party Systems in the Making: The Emergence and Success of New Parties in New Democracies.’ British Journal of Political Science, 38(1): 113–133. Van Haute, Emilie. 2016. ‘Conclusion: Green Parties in Europe: Which Family Ties?’ In Emilie van Haute (ed.), Green Parties in Europe. Abingdon: Routledge, 315–324.

Part II

The changing impact and human face of the Green Parties

4 The impact of the Green Parties in Taiwan Elections, media and the international

Has the GPT been a success or failure? There is not a simple answer to this question. In the last chapter, I discussed the emergence of the GPT and the Trees Party. That took the analysis up to the threshold of declaration on my framework for plotting the lifespan of the Green Parties. The goal of this chapter is, then, to plot the development of the parties since their establishment. How and when have they crossed the subsequent lifespan thresholds that I laid out in Chapter 2? I will focus on three major areas of party development; these are electoral performance, media visibility and international engagement. Plotting the parties’ development on these three dimensions will be critically important for the structure and analysis in the latter part of the book. This is because one of the core goals of this study, and of course much of the small parties literature, is to explain their changing electoral fortunes.

The electoral fortunes of the Green Parties The first step in examining the GPT’s electoral development is to provide a picture of the overall development of Taiwan’s party system since democratisation. This is introduced using three tables. Firstly, Table  4.1 shows the vote shares for all relevant parties in national parliamentary elections since 1991. Secondly, Table 4.2 shows the proportion of parliamentary seats won by the main parties since 1991. Thirdly, Table 4.3 shows the number of seats won by relevant parties and the proportion of seats in local city and county councils since 1998. There is some debate over when Taiwan’s first democratic election was, and in this case, I chose 1991 as my starting point, as this was the first time the full parliament had been directly elected. I took 1998 as the starting point for local elections for two reasons. Firstly, it was the first year the GPT joined local elections. Secondly, the Central Election Commission’s (CEC) online database is incomplete for local elections prior to 1998. Before examining these tables, some other contextual information needs to be outlined so as to understand where the GPT fits in the overall development of party politics. Taiwan has held direct presidential elections since 1996. In 1996, the KMT retained the presidency on the same day as the National Assembly elections. In 2000, Taiwan had its first change of ruling parties, as the DPP won the

48

Changing impact and human face

Table 4.1 Vote Shares in National Parliamentary (Legislative Yuan and National Assembly) Elections 1991

1992

1995

1996

1998

2001

2004

2008

2012

2016

2020

KMT 71.2 DPP 23.9 CSDP 2.1 WP 0.1 GPT NP TIP NNA PFP TSU NPP MKT FHA TP TPP SBP

53 31.6 1.6 0.4

46.1 33.2

49.7 29.9

46.4 29.6

28.6 33.4

32.8 35.7

51.2 36.9

44.5 34.6

26.9 44

33.3 33.9

13.0

1.1 13.7

0.1 7.1 1.5 1.6

0 2.9 0

0.1 0

0.6 4

1.7 1.5

2.5 4.1

2.4 1

18.6 8.5

13.9 7.8

0 3.5

5.5 9

6.5 2.5 6.1 1.6 1.7 0.6

3.6 0.3 7.7

11.2 3.1

Note: The party vote share figures for the 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020 legislative elections are from the party list votes. Abbreviations: KMT: Kuomintang; DPP: Democratic Progressive Party; CSDP: Chinese Social Democratic Party; WP: Workers’ Party; NP: New Party; TIP: Taiwan Independence Party; NNA: New Nation Alliance; PFP: People First Party; TSU: Taiwan Solidarity Union; NPP: New Power Party; MKT: Minkuotang; FHA: Faith and Hope Alliance; TP: Trees Party; TPP: Taiwan People’s Party; SBP: State Building Party. Source: Online database of the Central Election Commission (February 8, 2020); figures for 1991 and 1992 from Fell, Government and Politics in Taiwan, (2018, 67)

Table 4.2 Seat Shares in National Parliamentary (Legislative Yuan and National Assembly) Elections 1991

1992

1995

1996

1998

2001

2004

2008

2012

2016

2020

KMT DPP

78.2 18.6

59 31.6

51.8 32.9

54.8 29.6

54.7 31.1

30.2 38.7

35.1 39.6

71.7 24

56.6 35.4

30 60

33.6 54

CSDP GPT TIP NNA NP PFP TSU NPP TPP SBP

0

0.6

0.3

0 0.4 0.4 4.9

0 0

0

0

0

0

0

0.4 20.2 5.8

0.4 15.1 5.3

0 0.9 0

0 2.7 2.7

0 2.7 0 4.4

0 0 0 2.7 4.4 0.9

12.8

13.8

Note: These figures show the seat shares for the main political parties in national parliamentary elections. Unlike in Table 4.1, I have only included parties that have won at least one seat. Sources: See Table 4.1

The impact of the Green Parties in Taiwan  49 Table 4.3  City and County Council Seat Shares and Seat Numbers 1998

2002

KMT 58. (572) 42.1 (428) DPP 14.3 (141) 17.4 (177) NP 2. (20) 0.9 (10) PFP 6.3 (65) TSU 0.8 (9) TIP 0.1 (1) LP GPT 0 (0) 0 (0) TP NPP SDP MKT Independent 25.5 (252) 32.1 (327) Total 986 1016

2005/6

2009/10

45.1 (450) 22.5 (225) 0.6 (6) 3.7 (37) 1.4 (14)

46.2 (419) 28.4 (258) 0.3 (3) 0.5 (5) 0.5 (5)

2014

2018

42.6 (386) 32.1 (291) 0.2 (2) 0.9 (9) 0.9 (9)

43.2 (394) 26.1 (238) 0.2 (2) 0.8 (8) 0.5 (5)

0.1 (1) 0.2 (2) 0.1 (1)

0.2 (2) 0.3 (3) 0 (0) 1.8 (16) 0.1 (1) 0.3 (3) 26.3 (240) 912

0 (0)

0.1 (1) 0 (0)

26.5 (265) 997

23.7 (215) 22.6 (205) 906 905

Note: This table shows the proportion of county and city council seats held by the main parties. The number of seats is shown in parenthesis. This includes seats for both city/county councils (including special municipality councils). Note: LP is Labor Party. Source: Online database of the Central Election Commission

presidential election. This started a period of divided government, as the KMT and its allies still controlled the parliament during the two DPP presidential terms (2000–2008). In 2008, the KMT returned to power, winning landslide presidential and parliamentary victories, and it retained power in 2012. Then, in 2016, the DPP won back the presidency but also won its first ever parliamentary majority. In the most recent national elections in 2020, the DPP retained control of both the presidency and parliament. Although the GPT has never joined presidential elections, they have represented important moments in the party’s development. For instance, the party was established during the campaign for the first presidential election in 1996, and the second presidential election coincides with the start of the party’s quietest period. Moreover, a major point of contention within the party has been over whether to openly endorse presidential candidates or to maintain neutrality. Readers might also notice from Tables 4.1 and 4.2 that there were more elections in the 1990s. This is partly due to the abolition of the National Assembly. Previously, its two main tasks were revising the constitution and electing the president. The latter function ended with direct presidential elections, and the task of constitutional revision was passed to the Legislative Yuan in 2005. The other major institutional change concerns the electoral system. The electoral system that was used at the national level until 2004 was a Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV) with multiple member districts. A comparison of Tables 4.1 and 4.2 shows that it was semi-proportional in its operation. However, there was a radical reform of the electoral system in 2005, with the new system first used in 2008. The new mixed system is quite similar to that introduced in Japan after 1993 and is generally classified as a Mixed Member Majoritarian system. Under the new system, voters

50  Changing impact and human face have two votes, one for a candidate in a single member district (SMD) and the second for their preferred party. There are a total of 73 SMD legislators, and 34 seats are distributed proportionally to parties receiving more than 5 percent of the party list vote. In addition, there are six seats elected in two nationwide districts for Taiwan’s Indigenous Peoples. One of the consequences of the new system was that the seat share became much less proportional and, at least initially, the small parties disappeared. Tables 4.1 and 4.2 suggest that the party system has gone through a number of distinct phases. In the initial period, there was a one-party dominant system with the KMT enjoying complete control of both parliaments. In the mid-1990s, the party system became more competitive, and the third relevant party, the NP, entered parliament. It was largely formed from politicians that defected from the KMT. A new party system emerged after the first change of ruling parties in 2000. While the NP faded in influence, two more splinter parties, the PFP and TSU, entered parliament. In the period from 2001 to 2008, the DPP was the largest party, but even with its ally, the TSU, it still did not enjoy a majority in parliament. Instead, the KMT and its splinter, the PFP, had a narrow majority. So, although there were four relevant parties in parliament, the way they often operated meant that it was quite like a two-party system. On the one side was the pro-KMT bloc known as the Pan Blue camp (KMT, PFP and NP) and on the other was the DPP bloc, known as the Pan Green camp (DPP and TSU). Following the 2008 elections, it looked initially like a return to KMT one-party dominance under the new electoral system. However, the 2012 elections produced a more balanced parliament. Even though the KMT retained a reduced but clear majority, the DPP recovered support and both the PFP and TSU returned to parliament. The 2016 elections saw the DPP winning its first ever parliamentary majority and the Pan Blue camp suffering a historic defeat. Also noteworthy is that 2016 is the first time a movement party entered parliament, in the form of the NPP. Table 4.2 shows there was a degree of continuity in the most recent 2020 parliamentary elections, with the DPP and KMT seat shares little changed. The most noticeable change in 2020 was the entrance of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), which had been created by the independent Taipei City Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲). The patterns in local city and county elections shown in Table 4.3 have been much more stable than the fluctuating seat shares seen at the national level in Table 4.2. The DPP enjoyed a gradual increase in its council seat share from 1998 through to a peak in 2014 but has generally been much weaker at this level than the national or local executive level. The KMT suffered a serious seat loss in the first local elections after it lost national power in 2000. However, despite its rise and fall at the national level, it has seen quite stable patterns in its local level representation since 2002. Splinter parties such as the NP, PFP and TSU have tended to be weaker at this level than in the national parliamentary elections. Lastly, while independents are largely irrelevant in the national parliament, they have retained about a quarter of local council seats.1 A key factor explaining the more stable local election results is that these elections have retained the SNTV electoral system.

The impact of the Green Parties in Taiwan  51 The next step is to consider where we place the movement parties, such as the GPT, in the overall development of Taiwan’s party system. There is a degree of similarity in the periodisation Ho and Huang have proposed for movement parties in Taiwan (2017) to that which Peng and I adopted for the GPT (Fell and Peng 2016). They suggest the initial period as from 1987 to 1992 and focus on the role of leftist parties such as the Workers’ Party (WP工黨). In Tables  4.1 and 4.2, we can see how the WP and CSDP had only a limited impact in the early posttransition elections and then disappeared.2 Ho and Huang’s second phase focuses on the formation and initial period of operation of the GPT in the 1990s. Peng and I reach a similar conclusion on the state of the GPT in the next period to Ho and Huang, who call it ‘Low Tide’ (2000–2007) (2017, 356), while we called it the ‘dormant period’ (2016, 69). Their next period is termed the ‘revival of movement parties’ and lasts from 2008 to 2013, while we proposed a slightly earlier starting point of 2006. Lastly, from 2014 to 2016 they argue that the latest period can be called ‘Sunflower Effect: The High Tide of Movement Parties,’ with the rise of the NPP the focus of attention.

GPT’s position within Taiwan’s changing party system Tables  4.1 to 4.3 do not tell us much about the GPT’s electoral performance. We can see the party wins a single seat in its first election in 1996, and though it gradually increases its parliamentary vote share from 2008 to 2016, it is still not enough to allow it to re-enter parliament. Although it contested local level elections from 1998, it was only in 2014 that it finally won local council seats, going from two to three seats in 2018. In the next part of the chapter, I will review the changing electoral performance of the GPT in more detail by using the periodisation set out in Chapter 1 of (1) the party’s initial period, from its first national and local electoral experience up to 1999; (2) the party’s quietest or semi-dormant phase between 2000 and 2005; (3) the Pan Han-sheng period from 2006 to 2012; (4) the Lee Ken-cheng period from 2013 through to the 2016 elections; and lastly (5) the Wang Hau-yu period through to 2020. With this in mind, in Table 4.4 I have summarised the GPT’s performance at the national level, including both the National Assembly (NA) election in 1996 and the Legislative Yuan (LY) elections. From 2008, the Legislative Yuan figures include vote totals and vote shares for both the district and party list components. Table 4.4 GPT Electoral Participation in National Level Elections 1996

1998

2001

District Vote 113,942 8089 1045 District Vote Share 1.1% 0.1% 0% Party List Vote Party List Vote Share

2008

2012

2016

2020

14,767 0.15% 58,473 0.6%

79,729 0.62% 229,566 1.74%

203,658 1.7% 308,106 2.5%

38,224 0.28% 341,465 2.4%

Source: Online database of the Central Election Commission

52  Changing impact and human face

The 1990s: a promising start or a paper tiger? The 1996 National Assembly elections The GPT’s first electoral performance in the 1996 National Assembly election was quite remarkable. Despite being less than two months old, the party won its first seat and was the fourth largest party in terms of vote share. It received a total of 113,942 votes or 1.1 percent of the national vote share. Considering that it only nominated in 13 districts, that vote share is impressive. Where it nominated, it gained an average of 3.6 percent of the votes. This suggests that if it had been able to nominate in all districts, though it might not have gained the 5 percent needed to win party list seats, it could have gained a higher national vote share than in 2012 or even 2016 or 2020. While the GPT would long be associated with Taipei City, in 1996 the GPT nominated in both north and central Taiwan. Six of its candidates gained over 10,000 votes, including the successful Kao Meng-ting (高孟定) in Yunlin, who won with over 20,000 votes. I have included the results for Kao Meng-ting in Yunlin District 1 in Table 4.5 so readers can see how he was elected. This was a district with a magnitude of 4; in other words, the top four vote winners would be elected. Kao Meng-ting was elected as he came in fourth. Kao Meng-ting was exceptional, as not only did he win the election but he did so by beating two mainstream party candidates in his district. Looking back at the election results, it is questionable whether even those GPT candidates that received around 10,000 votes can be put into the category of being competitive candidates. In other words, none of the others were just one place short of the lowest successful candidate or just a few thousand votes short. We can take the GPT’s second highest vote winner, Chang Shu-mei (張淑玫) in Taipei County District 3, as an example. It was a district with a magnitude of 5, and Chang came eighth with 13,694 or 5.36 percent of

Table 4.5 Yunlin County National Assembly District 1 in 1996 Candidate

Party

Vote Total

Vote Share

Elected

Kong Hsing-sheng (龔興生) Wang Hsiu-yuan (王琇媛) Chang Kun-lin (張坤霖) Kao Meng-ting (高孟定) Huang Kuo-cheng (黃國城) Lin Chen-tsai (林振財) Chen Hsiu-yue (陳秀月) Wu Tung-jung (吳東融) Lin Ching-chi (林清致) Lin Lian-fen (林蓮芬)

KMT KMT KMT GPT DPP Indep DPP Indep Indep Indep

41,949 40,293 33,452 20,270 17,260 12,373 9,611 3,346 2,000 931

23.11% 22.20% 18.43% 11.17% 9.51% 6.82% 5.30% 1.84% 1.10% 0.51%

* * * *

Source: Online database of the Central Election Commission

The impact of the Green Parties in Taiwan  53 the vote. The lowest placed successful candidate got 26,454 or 10.35 percent, so Chang needed to almost double her vote to get elected. Moreover, other than Kao Meng-ting, none of the other GPT candidates scored higher vote shares in their districts than any mainstream party candidate. Therefore, we can consider a category of semi-competitive candidates to apply to about half of the GPT’s 1996 candidates. Considering that almost none of the GPT’s candidates had ever stood for election before, their performances were quite remarkable. However, it is unfortunate that despite this impressive start, none of the district candidates would ever stand for the GPT in any future election. Three of them would stand again but for other parties. The only exception was Kao Cheng-yan, who stood as a party list candidate in 1996 and would later stand three times for the GPT. This feature of wasting valuable candidate election experience will sadly be frequently repeated in this story of the GPT, as the vast majority of GPT candidates have only stood once and then dropped out of electoral politics. In fact, out of the 94 GPT candidates standing for election between 1996 and 2020, only 16 have stood for the GPT more than once. Despite those reservations, if we consider my lifespan model, then it is clear that within weeks of being established, the party had crossed a number of thresholds. The extensive nomination means it crossed the threshold of authorisation and potentially the nationwide threshold. Kao Meng-ting’s success in winning a seat allowed the party to cross the threshold of national representation. The number of candidates exceeding 10,000 votes but still well short of the lowest winning candidates suggests that the party was still only on the margins of the threshold of competitivity, with most candidates instead still in the semi-competitive category. Speaking in late 2012, GPT party founder Kao Cheng-yan concluded that ‘in terms of elections, that year (1996) was our best performance.’3

Initial international recognition In the previous chapter, I noted how, in its founding declaration, the GPT saw itself as part of the global green movement. In fact, the party moved quickly towards the thresholds of green international engagement. This was clear when on March 19, 1996, the European Federation of Green Parties issued an open letter in support of the GPT and its anti-nuclear referendum bid. It stated that ‘the European Federation of Green Parties wholeheartedly supports the promotion of these Green ideas by the Taiwanese Green Party and the right of the Taiwanese people to determine their own future.’4 This was followed by a news release by the Green Party of England and Wales under the headline, ‘Penny Helps Taiwan Greens Win Seat.’5 The release gave details of the Taiwan visit by Penny Kemp, a member of the Green Party’s Executive. Ms Kemp is quoted as saying, ‘everyone here is overjoyed that the newly formed Green Party has a won a seat. Also in a referendum on a proposed nuclear power station held

54  Changing impact and human face alongside the election the electorate has rejected nuclear power.’6 It went on to note that ‘the Taiwan Green Party has thanked Penny Kemp for going to Taiwan to help with their campaign and believe that her presence contributed towards their successes.’7 The ability of the GPT to set up these initial international links so quickly was related to the high level of international media attention on Taiwan as a result of the 1995–6 cross-Strait crisis and first direct presidential election. GPT figures I have interviewed have spoken about being interviewed by the BBC, Washington Post and Guardian prior to making contact with the European Greens. According to Chang Chi-huang, the European Greens first contacted them by fax after a BBC report.8 She noted that originally two representatives were going to come, but one decided in the end that it was too dangerous and pulled out of the trip. However, Penny Kemp still came and openly campaigned for the GPT, receiving considerable media attention. Speaking 23 years later, founding GPT Secretary General Hong Yu-cheng commented that when Penny Kemp saw us she was very happy. We were all wearing jeans with holes, wearing T-shirts. Spray painting. She laughed loudly and said you are the Green Party. If we’d been wearing suits, then she’d have gone back to Europe and said we were fake. She could see we were really social movement people. We did not do so well in that election but we had connected with the European Greens and we had been recognised by Penny Kemp. She told us a lot about the European Green Parties. I still remember this very clearly today. . . . That was our first election and we did not know if it was good or bad but our European friend had told us that we were doing the right thing. This encouraged us to carry on fighting.9 In the next few years, the GPT would go on to intensify its international engagement after this initial success. Chang Chi-huang stressed the role that Kemp would continue to play in this regard, noting that ‘after Penny came, she later helped us with many things.’10 After first connecting westward, another critical connection would come with the visit of Australian Green Party Senator Bob Brown in May 1996. It was clear that this led to fruitful discussions, as at the GPT’s First General Assembly it was reported that Taiwan and Australia’s Green Parties were starting preparations for establishing the Asia Pacific Greens network.11 Moreover, the same report noted that following Taiwan’s precedent of becoming the first Asian Green Party, Green Parties had since been established in Thailand and Mongolia.12 An important piece in the development of the GPT’s international outreach was the addition of Linda Arrigo as its International Affairs Officer in early 1997 after Kao Cheng-yan invited her to return from the United States. Arrigo noted that ‘I was supposed to be paid staff, International Affairs Officer, but they didn’t have any money.’13 Kao recalled how they did provide formal documentation to the Ministry of Interior to allow her to legally work in Taiwan.14 An example

The impact of the Green Parties in Taiwan 55 of the GPT’s environmental diplomacy was the way it exposed Taipower’s contract to export nuclear waste to North Korea. On this occasion, they worked together with a visiting delegation from Green Korea in early 1997.15 This led to an international incident as the joint GPT/Green Korea protest was physically attacked by NP supporters, and the Korean delegates were deported from Taiwan.16 This would be followed by the creation of the No Nukes Action Forum, which included groups from Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. With her weekly radio show on ICRT, Arrigo was able to give wider exposure to a range of environmental issues. Arrigo was also involved in revealing the scandal surrounding the shipping of mercury-laced waste from the plastics industry to Cambodia by Taiwan’s Nanya Plastics.

Almost breaking through: the elections of 1998 The GPT had to wait almost two years for its next elections in 1998. However, the party was unable to build upon the foundation left by 1996. This led Ho to conclude that by the end of the decade, the GPT had turned out to be ‘no more than a paper tiger, electorally speaking’ (2003, 704). In 1998, the GPT first contested local county council elections in January as well as both city council and national level legislative elections in December. A  major difference from 1996 was that, with one exception, all the 1998 candidates stood in the greater Taipei region. In addition, although there had been 13 district candidates in 1996, the number of candidates had fallen to 9. The elections in 1998 offered greater potential for the party to get elected, as while the National Assembly elections had used medium-sized districts with an average magnitude of about 5, many of the local council elections had district magnitudes of 10 or more. Moreover, this time the GPT nominated councillor candidates in many of the same locations where it had proved popular in the previous National Assembly elections. The GPT nominated candidates in four districts in the county council elections. There were three in Taipei County and one in Hualien. It is immediately clear that the GPT candidates had gone from being mainly semi-competitive to noncompetitive. For example, in nine-member Hualien District 1, the GPT’s Chung Pao-chu (鍾寶珠) gained 850 votes or 2.06  percent, coming seventeenth. The GPT should have been in a stronger position in the ten-seat Taipei County District 1 (Banqiao) in 1998, as this corresponded with the Taipei County National Assembly District 2 where Lin Yen-ling (林艷玲) had gained 9,735 votes two years earlier. This time, while the lowest successful candidate won with 7,502, the GPT candidate managed only 752 votes. The GPT strategy and performance was better in December’s elections, where it was concentrated in Taipei City, with party founder Kao standing for legislator in Taipei together with four candidates standing for city council. Kao was the GPT’s only national legislative candidate, standing in the ten-seat Taipei City District 2. Traditionally, the Taipei City legislative districts have tended

56  Changing impact and human face to be highly competitive and receive the most media attention. Although Kao’s 8,089 votes were close to the average votes received by the GPT in the National Assembly elections two years earlier, he was clearly in the non-competitive category rather than semi-competitive, as the lowest successful candidate received 30,503 votes. In 1998, the GPT continued its diplomacy efforts, welcoming more international Green Party visitors. In February, two German Green Party parliamentarians came to Taiwan to appeal for better treatment of stray dogs.17 Then, in November, the Spokesperson of the Federation of European Green Parties, Franz Floss, visited Taiwan to meet a variety of environmental organisations. However, these visits did not seem to have the same impact as Penny Kemp two years earlier.18 Let me now turn to the four standing for Taipei City Council. The candidates in Taipei Districts 1, 3 and 5 received between 3,000 and 4,000 votes and can be placed in the non-competitive category. What is especially interesting, though, is that Peng Yen-wen, in District 6, gained 10,501 votes or 3.38 percent. This put her just 5,898 votes behind the lowest winner. Peng had come fourteenth in this 11-seat district, and was clearly competing with a number of mainstream party candidates. At least until 2014, when the GPT first won at the local level, Peng’s campaign was seen as a model for what could be achieved with limited resources. The results in District 6 are displayed in Table 4.6. However, Peng’s campaign was clearly the exception to the rule that year. Therefore, the elections in 1998

Table 4.6 Taipei City Council District 6 in 1998 Candidate

Party

Vote Total

Vote Share

Elected

Chin Li-fang (秦儷舫) Chang Nai-hsin (蔣乃辛) Chiang Gai-shi (江蓋世) Chen Chin-hsiang (陳錦祥) Chou Po-ya (周柏雅) Li Keng Kui-fang (厲耿桂芳) Teng Chia-chi (鄧家基) Lee Ching-yuan (李慶元) Ko Ching-sheng (柯景昇) Lee Hsin (李新)

NP

39,089

12.59%

*

KMT

32,921

10.61%

*

DPP

22,906

7.38%

*

KMT

19,910

6.41%

*

DPP

19,496

6.28%

*

KMT

19,418

6.26%

*

NP

19,243

6.20%

*

NP

17,821

5.74%

*

DPP

17,210

5.54%

*

NP

16,500

5.32%

*

The impact of the Green Parties in Taiwan  57 Candidate

Party

Vote Total

Vote Share

Elected

Lee Yi-hua (林奕華) Liu Chang-lun (劉昌崙) Lin Mei-na (林美娜) Lee Ching-feng (李慶鋒) Peng Yen-wen (彭渰雯) Chang Yu-tai (張裕泰) Wang Chang-chun (王長春) Tseng Wen-hua (曾文華) Kuo Ju-chien (郭儒釗)

KMT

16,399

5.28%

*

KMT

15,657

5.04%

DPP

11,897

3.83%

DPP

10,950

3.53%

GPT

10,501

3.38%

Indep

9,315

3.00%

KMT

8,441

2.72%

TIP

1,987

0.64%

731

0.24%

Indep

Source: Online database of the Central Election Commission

raise two puzzles to be explained. Firstly, why did the GPT candidates go from being semi-competitive in 1996 to non-competitive in 1998? Secondly, why was Peng’s campaign in 1998 so much better than the rest? I will return to these questions in Chapter 7. Another way we can consider the impact of the GPT is through its media visibility. Figure 4.1 shows the number of articles mentioning the GPT each year in United Daily News and Taipei Times. In this section, the columns deserving attention are for United Daily News from 1996 to 1999. With the exception of 2015, the GPT received its highest levels of United Daily News coverage in 1996 and 1998. However, we can see that after 1998 the party largely falls off the mainstream media’s radar for most of the next ten years. Kao’s comments on what happened gives a vivid picture of the state of the party after 1998: the candidate deposits are very high, but if you do not cross the vote threshold then the deposit is not returned. So we would accumulate resources and then in one go they would be depleted. So after the election the whole party would almost collapse. The clearest case of this was 1998.19 By the end of the decade, the GPT had fallen back on thresholds of competitivity as well as nationwide representation. The only area in which it continued to perform well was international engagement.

43

100

25

0

20

2

42 0

27 1

23 2

9 2

3 1

35 4

90

77 14

68 16

Source: United Daily News database and Taipeitimes.com archive

Figure 4.1  Newspaper Reports Mentioning GPT in United Daily News and Taipei Times

TT

TT

7

50

7

54

11

46

10

18

15

66

55

130

17

86

3

13

7

51

32

65

1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

UDN 105

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

UDN

58  Changing impact and human face

The impact of the Green Parties in Taiwan  59

The quiet or dormant phase After the GPT’s failure to build on its promising start and make breakthroughs, the party fell into its dominant or quietest phase. Ho and Huang calls this the ‘Low Tide’ for movement parties (2017, 356). The sense that the party had collapsed after defeat is clear from the fact that it appears it was not going to nominate candidates for the May 2000 National Assembly. Although this election was eventually cancelled due to constitutional changes, the candidate registration was completed in mid-April 2000 and I have not found any evidence of GPT nomination from press reports or interviews. The next rounds of elections came in December 2001 and December 2002. Both levels of nomination and GPT candidates’ electoral performance reveal how far the party had fallen. While in the previous round there were nine GPT candidates, this time it was just three token candidates. Although Kao was standing in the same Taipei City Legislative District 2 in 2001, his vote fell from over 8,000 votes to only 1,045 or 0.17 percent. The GPT also tried to put up its first ever local executive candidate in Hualien, but Chi Shu-ying (齊淑英) was the lowest placed candidate with just 1,299 or 0.86 percent. Chi did stand again in 2003 for the county magistrate by-election but managed only 749 or 0.5 percent. In 2002, the GPT just nominated a single candidate for Taipei City Council and in District 6, where Peng had come so close to getting elected in 1998. However, Chen Chao-shun (陳朝順) managed to get a meagre 1,807 or 0.62 percent of the vote. Following these setbacks, the GPT ceased to operate as an electoral party for a number of years. It was entirely absent for the 2004 Legislative Yuan elections, 2005 National Assembly and 2005 local council elections. Therefore, the major challenge for this period is how best to explain the party’s virtual and then actual disappearance as an electoral player. Figure 4.1 shows a similar pattern when it comes to media attention, as the GPT was barely noticed between 1999 and 2005. Its worst year for United Daily News reports came in 2005 with only three reports mentioning the GPT; the pattern in the Taipei Times was largely similar.

Growing international engagement While the GPT was fading away as an electoral actor, the trends were quite different in terms of its international engagement. In April 2000, Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown organised a preparatory Asia Pacific Green Politics workshop in Brisbane.20 Here it was agreed to create an Asia Pacific Greens Federation on similar lines to the federations in Europe and the Americas. This would later be further formalised at the first Global Greens Congress, held Canberra in 2001. It was clear the Taiwan delegation was playing an active role in the process, as Kao Cheng-yan agreed to manage the email contact list for the Asia Pacific Green Network. The post-workshop report includes a brief introduction of each member party. Kao was also one of the three Asia–Pacific members of the First Global Greens Congress organising committee. He also led the Taiwanese delegation to the First Global Greens Congress in 2001 and was one of the three elected members of Global Green Coordination representing Asia Pacific Greens, a post he held until 2005.

60  Changing impact and human face By 2005, the GPT was starting to come out of hibernation. Its former star candidate, Peng Yen-wen, had returned from doctoral school in the United States to become the new Convenor. This coincided with the first Asia Pacific Greens Congress held in Kyoto, Japan, in February 2005. Both Peng and her 1998 campaign manager, Calvin Wen, are mentioned in the conference report.21 The Taiwanese participation was not covered in the United Daily News but did feature a couple of times in the Taipei Times. At the Congress, the Taiwanese delegation received considerable backing for its international petition calling on Taiwan’s government to cancel a series of highly polluting steel and petrochemical projects it had recently approved. The Taipei Times reported that a GPT delegate, Professor Lin Tze-luen (林子倫), questioned the Taiwan government’s resolution to curb emissions of greenhouse gases, noting that ‘since some major players, such as the US and Australia, rejected the Kyoto Protocol, the government seems to be taking advantage of its not being a UN member, holding a “just wait and see” attitude toward related issues.’22 Additionally, the Taiwan delegation returned to one of its founding topics, the military threat posed by China. The GPT sponsored a resolution that stated ‘the political conflict between China and Taiwan can be solved through democratic and diplomatic means. We urge China to dismantle their missiles aimed at Taiwan and any other country in the Asia Pacific region.’23 In short, in the GPT’s dormant electoral phase we saw a quite contradictory trend in the field of international engagement. While in the initial period the GPT had received acknowledgement from overseas Green Parties and begun to build relationships, in this second period it had fully crossed a further threshold by becoming a founding member of the Global Greens and being one of the core initiators of the Asia Pacific Greens network.

Re-emergence of the GPT into the Pan era Peng and I date the re-emergence of the GPT from 2006, as after its absence in the previous few elections it once again contested elections on very a modest scale (Fell and Peng 2016). In terms of my lifespan framework, the GPT was moving towards the threshold of recovery. That year, the GPT nominated two candidates for Taipei City Council, and though neither was competitive in their districts, it marked the start of a period of gradual improvement in the electoral performance. At least in 2006, it was not yet entirely clear that this was the start of a new era. When Pan Han-sheng (2006) compared 1998 and 2006, he noted that despite having more experienced candidates, ‘the GPT’s total vote and vote share had shrunk by two thirds.’ We can get a sense of the limitations of the GPT’s revival by examining Taipei City District 6, where Peng had almost won in 1998. Here, though Chang Hung-lin (張宏林) gained 3,410 and doubled the GPT’s score in that district from 2002, he was still 7,000 short of Peng’s total. If we consider that the lowest successful candidate won with 13,907, we can see that Chang could not really even be described as semi-competitive. Nevertheless, Chang and Pan would be two of the most influential figures in the party for the next six years, especially Pan.

The impact of the Green Parties in Taiwan  61 In 2008, the new parliamentary electoral system was used for the first time. Ho and Huang (2017) take this as the start of the new era, or what they call the era of the ‘revival of movement parties.’ They highlight the fact that on this occasion the GPT and the Raging Citizens Act Now (人民火大行動聯盟) formed an alliance for a joint party list.24 Thus, this was an attempt to combine environmental and labour appeals, with both sides nominating two of the four party list candidates. The election was also important for the GPT for a number of other reasons. Because of the party list element of the voting system, this meant that the GPT was standing nationwide in all districts for the first time. In order to have a party list set of candidates, the GPT had to nominate ten district candidates. However, the 73 SMD part of the election became a battle between the two main parties, and to a large extent the small parties disappeared as competitive actors. We can see this in Taipei City District 7. Although there were a number of small party candidates standing, they were largely irrelevant. The GPT’s rising star, Pan Hansheng, came fourth but only managed to get 1,275 or 0.88 percent of the vote. I  chose to highlight this district, as it would become a focal point of the GPT campaign four years later. Two candidates that had stood in 1998, Chung Pao-chu and Peng Yen-wen, returned to the fray but knew that their role was not to compete in their district races. Chung, with 2.6 percent of the vote in Hualien, was the best GPT district candidate in terms of vote share, and was actually the third placed candidate. However, we can see the degree to which small parties were marginalised in the district races by the fact that she was 25,000 votes behind the second placed candidate and 60,000 behind the winner. Instead, the focus of the campaign for small parties was to cross the 5 percent required to gain proportional party list seats. The GPT party list included an impressive line-up of experienced NGO figures from gender, environmental and labour groups. However, as we see in Table 4.7, the GPT’s party list performance was very poor at only 58,473 votes or almost 0.6 percent. It was instead the two splinter parties, the TSU and NP,

Table 4.7 2008 Legislative Yuan Party List Results Party

Vote Total

Vote Share

Seats

KMT DPP NP TSU Home Party (紅黨) Non-Partisan Solidarity Union (無黨團結聯盟) GPT Taiwan Farmer’s Party (台灣農民黨) Civil Party (公民黨) Third Society Party (第三社會黨) Hakka Party (客家黨) Taiwan Constitution Association (制憲聯盟)

5,010,801 3,610,106 386,660 344,887 77,870 68,527

51.23 36.91 3.95 3.52 0.79 0.7

20 14 0 0 0 0

58,473 57,144 48,192 45,594 42,004 30,315

0.59 0.58 0.49 0.46 0.42 0.31

0 0 0 0 0 0

Source: Online database of the Central Election Commission

62  Changing impact and human face that came closest to the threshold. Despite its focus on Taipei City since 1996, the GPT only just managed to get over 1 percent of the party list vote there. The verdict of the Taipei Times on the GPT’s performance in 2008 was that it was ‘a big setback.’25 Despite this electoral setback, the GPT had its most ambitious case of international participation in 2008. On May 1–4, it joined the Second Global Greens Congress in Sao Paolo, Brazil, as part of a 22-person Taiwanese delegation that was partially funded by Taiwan’s Environmental Protection Agency. The event came just before the inauguration of the new KMT government on May 20, 2018. The soon to be ex-Deputy Minister, Chang Feng-teng (張豐藤), was quoted in the Taipei Times as saying that the decision to sponsor the group was ‘one of the most meaningful things I have done since I have been in office.’26 Interviews featured in the Taipei Times report showed how important participants felt the Congress was. For instance, GPT Secretary General Pan Han-sheng described it as ‘a UN for Green organizations.’27 He explained that under oppression from China and control from the US, Taiwan’s space for survival in the international community is very limited, however we were able to attend the conference with full membership, a status that even China did not enjoy at GG 2008.28 In terms of Taiwan’s diplomacy, the Wild at Heart Legal Defence Association’s Robin Winkler argued that Taiwan should drop its focus on formal diplomatic allies as ‘the success of Taiwan’s international future lies in human rights and environmental diplomacy.’29 It is clear that Taiwan’s delegation was very active in Congress proceedings; Pan particularly highlighted their role in an anti-nuclear power resolution. The Global Greens Congress report drew attention to the participation of the Taiwanese delegation in the Global Young Greens meeting, in which Taiwan had the largest number of participants. Lastly, the Taipei Times report noted that preparations had started for Taiwan’s hosting of the Asia Pacific Greens Congress. As the first DPP presidency came to an end, we can also get a sense of the media attention GPT had been receiving. In Figure 4.1, we can see the party was returning to similar levels of media coverage to its early years. If we consider that most of the articles in 2007 and 2008 were related to the January 2008 legislative elections, then we can even say the GPT was enjoying its best media visibility to date.

Elections and international impact during the first Ma Ying-jeou presidency (2008–2012) The 2008 elections resulted in the KMT taking control of both the presidency and Legislative Yuan. The scale of political dominance was reinforced by the fact it had won landslide local election victories in 2005. With its natural adversary in

The impact of the Green Parties in Taiwan  63 power, this era saw a revival of social movement activism and created a favourable environment for movement parties (Fell 2017). In the aftermath of the 2008 elections, a number of legislative by-elections were called as a result of either KMT politicians being disqualified on charges of vote buying or politicians switching to local executive posts. In this wave of by-elections, the GPT joined just one in March 2009 for Taipei City District 6. The election was called as the sitting KMT legislator had her status revoked by the Central Election Commission as a result of holding dual citizenship for most of her elected career. There was much debate within the GPT over who the candidate should be, and at an early stage it looked possible that the DPP might even support a GPT candidate by not nominating. In the end, the GPT settled on former GPT Secretary General Calvin Wen. In the run-up to the election, the GPT candidate did receive a significant level of media attention, but as we see in Table 4.8, the results were disappointing. Wen only got 1,058 votes and was beaten by even third placed Yao Li-ming (姚立明) (9,868 votes), who was standing as an independent but was supported by the NP and Home Party. Despite the minor role of the GPT in this outcome, I have included the full results table as this district would be a GPT focal point in 2016. This shows how the new electoral system worked in sharp contrast to the old SNTV system that we saw in Table 4.5. Robin Winkler’s conclusion on this by-election experience was ‘that was a pretty disastrous election.’30 The next election the GPT joined was for the county council in Penghu in December 2009. This was the first time a GPT candidate had stood in one of the offshore islands. It looked like a good opportunity, as Penghu County District 1 has a magnitude of 11. Moreover, the GPT candidate, Lin Chang-hsing (林長興), had been a leading figure in the successful referendum campaign against the introduction of casinos in Penghu in September. However, Lin received just 843 votes or 2.97 percent of the vote share, and that was about half of the lowest successful candidate.31 This campaign is significant for two reasons. Firstly, it could be seen as the first time a GPT candidate had returned to being semi-competitive since the 1990s. Secondly, this Penghu district would be a key target district for Green Parties in the next two rounds of local elections in 2014 and 2018.

Table 4.8 Taipei City Legislative By-Election District 6 in 2009 Candidate

Party

Vote total

Vote Share

Elected

Chiang Nai-hsin (蔣乃辛) Chou Po-ya (周柏雅) Yao Li-ming (姚立明) Calvin Wen (溫炳原) Liu Yi-yun (劉義鈞) Chao Yan-ching (趙衍慶) Chen Yuan-chi (陳源奇)

KMT DPP Indep GPT Indep Indep Indep

46065 36,465 9,868 1,058 645 46 39

48.91% 38.72% 10.48% 1.12% 0.68% 0.05% 0.04%

*

Source: Online database of the Central Election Commission

64  Changing impact and human face One of the most important moments in the GPT’s international engagement history came when it hosted the Second Asia Pacific Greens Congress in April– May  2010. Robin Winkler described it as ‘very successful.’32 He particularly highlighted the role of the two keynote speakers: the award-winning Indian writer and eco-feminist Vandana Shiva and Australian Green Party leader Bob Brown. Many of the GPT activists I have interviewed mentioned this as a key moment in their involvement in the party’s affairs. One example is Wang Chung-ming, who would become one of the party’s most well-known figures and competitive candidates in the next few years. He became involved in finding and training volunteers for the Congress. He recalled that many of them [volunteers] were very clever, they were well organized. The overseas guests were full of praise of these volunteers at the Asia Pacific Greens Congress. The overseas Green Party delegates came away with the impression that the GPT had a group of very enthusiastic young people. Actually, it was a false impression as some of them were just helping out for a few days at Asia Pacific Greens.33 One of his volunteers was Wang Yen-han (王彥涵), who would later go on to be a GPT candidate and Co-Convenor. This was also the first time Keli Yen (顏克莉) became directly involved in a party event, something that Winkler also cited as a key Congress legacy. Keli Yen has since been a key figure who institutionalised the GPT’s international relations. She was Director of Green Party Taiwan’s International Secretariat, and Director of the Taiwan Friends of the Global Greens. In addition, she served as Convenor of the Asia Pacific Greens Federation from 2011 to 2015. After relocating to Europe, she was elected Convenor of Global Greens in 2017 and continued to be a key figure in sharing GPT news on Global Greens and Asia Pacific Greens networks. Of course, the experience of the Congress was not all positive. A Taipei Times report noted that ‘Green Party Taiwan (GPT), one of the event’s organisers, said it suffered a financial loss of NT$700,000 to NT$800,000 by hosting the event because of a lack of donations.’34 The next round of local elections came in December 2010 when elections were held for special municipality mayors and city councils. The GPT ran its most coordinated local campaign since 1998. At one point it had hoped to have candidates in all six Taipei City districts, but eventually settled on four in Taipei City and one in New Taipei City (formerly Taipei County) and a neighbourhood chief in Taipei City. Unlike in the past, when GPT candidates tended to stand in a district once and then never stand again, Chang Hung-lin and Pan Han-sheng stood again in Taipei City Districts 3 and 6. While we can categorise Pan and Chang as from the Wild Lily generation, the other three were joining their first elections and mark the arrival of a new generation of activists born in the 1980s.35 The results were mixed in Taipei City. Li Ying-hsuan (李盈萱) had the highest vote share at 2.41 percent in Taipei City District 2 and almost 5,000 votes. Pan improved significantly on his 2006 District 3 vote (1,971), getting 5,011. Thus, his vote and vote share exceeded those of Chang Chi-huang in 1998. Although Chang Hung-lin improved on his

The impact of the Green Parties in Taiwan  65 2006 District 6 score, it was a more limited advance and left him still at under half of Peng’s 1998 vote total. Overall Pan, Li and Chang can be placed on the margins of the semi-competitive category, as they were all at about a third of the level of the lowest successful candidate. The highlight of the GPT’s 2010 campaigns, though, was Wang Chung-ming in New Taipei City District 1. This is the historic Tamsui district, and it was the first time a GPT candidate had stood here. The results are displayed in Table 4.9. We can see that while Wang was fifth in this three-seat district, he scored the highest GPT vote total since 1998 and highest vote share since 1996. On the back of this campaign, it was believed Wang could have the potential to win in a subsequent election, especially as the magnitude for this district would be increased in 2014 to 4. On the back of the promising local elections in December 2010, preparations began for the next round of national elections in January 2012. This was to be the first time that the legislative and presidential elections would be held on the same day, part of a policy to consolidate the election calendar. This would then be repeated in 2014 with all local elections held on the same day. The growing party confidence can be seen from the fact the GPT even considered running its first presidential campaign for 2012.36 Compared to four years earlier, the GPT showed significant improvement in terms of both the party list vote and the district candidates. I will discuss the party list first, the results of which are displayed in Table 4.10. Although the party list vote of 1.74 percent was still well short of the required 5 percent, it was a significant improvement on 2008. It meant this was the party’s highest ever national vote share, beating 1996 for the first time. Moreover, it had beaten the much better funded NP. The GPT was ranked the fifth most popular party, after the KMT, DPP, TSU and PFP. The most popular districts for the GPT were Taipei City (2.8%), Hsinchu City (2.2%), New Taipei City (2%) and Taitung (1.8%). The two Taipei Cities are not surprising given the party’s long-standing practice of nominating candidates there since 1996. Hsinchu is also noteworthy, as this would later become an important targeted district at the local level starting from 2014. The high score in Taitung can partly be explained by its nomination of Sinan Mavivo (希婻 ‧ 瑪飛洑) on its party list. She is an Indigenous Tao

Table 4.9 New Taipei City Council District 1 in 2010 Candidate

Party

Vote total

Vote Share

Elected

Cheng Tai Li-hsiang (鄭戴麗香) Lu Tzu-chang (呂子昌) Tsai Chin-hsien (蔡錦賢) Lee Wen-the (李文德) Wang Chung-ming (王鐘銘) Lian Jui-nong (練瑞農)

KMT DPP Indep KMT GPT Indep

30,122 28,707 24,179 17,509 8,321 2,166

27.13% 25.86% 21.78% 15.77% 7.49% 1.95%

* * *

Source: Online database of the Central Election Commission

66  Changing impact and human face Table 4.10 2012 Legislative Yuan Party List Results Party

Vote Total

Vote Share

Seats

KMT DPP TSU PFP GPT NP National Health System Alliance (健保免費連線) Taiwan National Congress (台灣國民會議) People are the Boss Alliance (人民最大黨) Taiwanism Party (台灣主義黨) Taiwan Basic Laws Party (中華民國臺灣基本法連線)

5,863,279 4,556,424 1,178,797 722,089 229,566 195,960 163,344

44.54 34.61 8.95 5.48 1.74 1.48 1.24

16 13 3 2 0 0 0

118,632

0.90

0

84,818 29,889 19,274

0.64 0.22 0.14

0 0 0

Note: The Home Party was renamed Taiwan National Congress in 2011. Source: Online database of the Central Election Commission

anti-nuclear activist from Lanyu Island. On Lanyu, the GPT did especially well, wining 35.7 percent of the party list vote and coming second, only slightly behind the KMT’s 39.2 percent. However, there were still no real competing alternative or movement parties. That a brand-new party such the National Health Service Alliance, which had only been formed in July 2011, could get 1.2 percent shows that the importance of the GPT’s 1.74  percent should not be exaggerated. Figure 4.1 also suggests that the GPT’s media coverage was actually lower in 2012 than the previous round of national elections in 2008. In fact, during a GPT focus group in late 2012, a number of party figures reached a critical conclusion on its election performance. The GPT’s district candidates also performed far better than in 2008, with Yang Mu-wan (楊木萬) in New Taipei City District 8 getting the second highest vote total at 8,598 or 4.57 percent. However, even this could not be considered to be even semi-competitive as the first and second candidates had over 80,000 votes. Instead, the main GPT focus in the district contests was the battle in Taipei City District 7 (displayed in Table 4.11). In this district, the DPP did not nominate a candidate and instead supported the GPT’s Pan Han-sheng. This could not be called a formal party to party agreement, as it was more based on an agreement between Pan and the DPP. As we will see later, this was a very controversial alliance and was heavily criticised by many party members and activists. However, Pan gained 43,449 or 24 percent of the vote, making this the highest ever GPT candidate vote total and vote share to date. This was though one of the safest KMT seats, and its candidate Alex Fai (費鴻泰) won comfortably with 62.9 percent of the vote. In fact, Fai had increased his vote total significantly compared to four years earlier, and this was in an election where there was a clear national vote swing away from KMT parliamentary candidates.

The impact of the Green Parties in Taiwan  67 Table 4.11 Taipei City Legislative Yuan District 7 in 2012 Candidate

Party

Vote Total

Vote Share

Elected

Alex Fai (費鴻泰) Pan Han-sheng Lee Chun-ting (黎俊廷) Huo Wen-ling (霍汶琳) Hu Kuang-tzu (胡光慈)

KMT

114,009

62.96%

*

GPT Indep (DPP rebel)

43,449 19,260

23.99% 10.63%

Taiwanism Party

2,619

1.44Hu

People are the Boss Alliance (人民最大黨)

1,718

0.94%

Source: Online database of the Central Election Commission

Nevertheless, on the back of significant progress at the local level in 2010 and the national level in 2012, the party looked poised to break through at both levels over the next four years. In terms of my lifespan thresholds, the GPT was at least on the margins of being semi-competitive again and could also claim to have fully passed the threshold of recovery. Moreover, soon afterwards in 2013, the party started to implement a series of organisational reforms to professionalise its operation and make it a genuine competitor for office. As we saw in the previous chapter, though, one of the prices of reforms in the Lee Ken-cheng era would be a party split.

Elections in the Lee Ken-cheng era: two Green Parties The local elections of 2014 were the first to feature both the GPT and the Trees Party. It was also the first time that all local elections were held on the same day. This meant that 11,130 elected posts were being contested, from city and county executive down to neighbourhood and village chiefs. That year the GPT ran its most extensive local election nomination with ten candidates spread out in New Taipei City (2), Penghu (1), Keelung (1), Taoyuan (3), Hsinchu City (1), Hsinchu County (1) and Kaohsiung (1).37 Apart from New Taipei City and Penghu, these were all new locations for local council nominations for the GPT. The major break from the past was that Taipei City, the one place it had always nominated and had tended to have its largest support base, even in its quietest period, was missing. One reason was the emergence of the GPT splinter party, the Trees Party, in August 2014, which I discussed in the previous chapter. The Trees Party’s nomination was actually even more extensive than the GPT’s, with ten local council candidates as well as numerous candidates for grassroots elections, such as neighbourhood chief and township representative. When I  visited GPT figures and joined party events in the late summer of 2014, there was much optimism about the party’s prospects. In a speech at a GPT event I stated, ‘the GPT is now like a political party and I am not saying this as a criticism.’38 As the campaign developed, it was clear that this was the party’s

68  Changing impact and human face most professional and best funded campaign to date. The party’s high hopes were partially achieved, as the GPT had finally won local seats after so many years of failures. It won two local council seats, with Wang Hau-yu in Taoyuan and Chou Chiang-chieh (周江杰) in Hsinchu county. These districts are displayed in Tables 4.12 and 4.13. In the six-seat Hsinchu County District 8, Chou just crossed the line, coming in fifth. However, he just beat the sixth placed candidate by four votes and beat two losing KMT and DPP candidates by narrow margins. In contrast, in the ten-seat Taoyuan District 7 (Chungli) Wang Hau-yu won comfortably, coming in second place with 16,269 votes or 9.06 percent. It was significant that for the first time GPT candidates were outscoring multiple mainstream party candidates. In the post-election review meeting, GPT Co-Convenor Lee Ken-cheng also highlighted the impressive performance of some other newcomers, particularly Liang Yi-chi (梁益誌) and Lo Yue-feng (羅岳峰).39 It was felt that Liang Yi-chi had run a strong campaign in Kaohsiung District 7, winning 7,798 votes, but he was still 4,000 off the lowest winning candidate. However, he did lay the foundations for the strong Kaohsiung party branch, which would play an important role in the GPT’s 2016 campaign. Also, in the 11-seat Taoyuan District 1, Lo Yue-feng’s 5,835 votes were just 2,870 off the lowest winning candidate. Out of

Table 4.12 Taoyuan City Council District 7 in 2014 Candidate

Party

Vote total Vote Share Elected

Lu Ming-che (魯明哲) Wang Hau-yu (王浩宇) Chiu Yi-sheng (邱奕勝) Peng Chun-hao (彭俊豪) Huang Fu Shu-hsiang (黃傅淑香) Liu Tseng Yu-chun (劉曾玉春) Liang Wei-chao (梁為超) Yuan Ming-hsing (袁明星) Chang Yun-ping (張運炳) Yeh Ming-yue (葉明月) Hsu Ching-wen (徐景文) Mu Ping-po (沐平波) Liu Wei-teh (劉威德) Lai Li-chu (賴立竹) Liu An-chi (劉安祺) Yeh Cheng Hsiu-pin (葉鄭秀蘋) Chiang Chong-chien (蔣中千)

KMT GPT KMT DPP DPP Indep KMT DPP Indep KMT DPP KMT Indep PFP Indep Indep Non-Partisan Solidarity Union Indep TSU NP Indep Indep

26,379 16,269 14,345 12,967 11,794 10,366 10,138 9,617 8,585 8,567 8,352 7,276 6,702 5,970 5,441 4,441 4,271

14.69% 9.06% 7.98% 7.22% 6.56% 5.77% 5.64% 5.35% 4.78% 4.77% 4.65% 4.05% 3.73% 3.32% 3.03% 2.47% 2.37%

3,551 1,969 1,157 899 494

1.97% 1.09% 0.64% 0.50% 0.27%

Liang Hsin-wu (梁新武) Huang Chi-tung (黃治東) Wu Cheng-chun (吳正群) Hsieh Wei-hsiao (謝偉孝) Peng Hsiu-han (彭秀涵)

Source: Online database of the Central Election Commission

* * * * * * * * * *

The impact of the Green Parties in Taiwan  69 Table 4.13 Hsinchu County Council District 8 in 2014 Candidate

Party

Vote total

Vote Share

Elected

Lo Chi-hsiang (羅吉祥) Wu Sheng-song (吳勝松) Lin Si-ming (林思銘) Peng Yu Mei-ling (彭余美玲) Chou Chiang-chieh (周江杰) Kuo Yuan-chang (郭遠彰) Lin Chao-chi (林昭錡) Shang Kuan Chiu-yan (上官秋燕) Liu Chia-kai (劉珈愷) Peng Yi-chun (彭怡君) Huang Hsiu-long (黃秀龍)

KMT KMT KMT Indep (KMT rebel) GPT KMT DPP KMT

7,085 5,710 5,667 5,608 4,402 4,398 4,328 4,221

16.04% 12.92% 12.83% 12.69% 9.96% 9.95% 9.80% 9.55%

* * * * * *

KMT Indep Indep

2,326 253 163

5.26% 0.57% 0.36%

Source: Online database of the Central Election Commission

the ten GPT candidates, nine were able to receive their candidate deposits back, something that had never happened in previous elections. The GPT had made its biggest strides thus far towards the threshold of competitivity. However, the post-election review meetings revealed that there was much disappointment that the breakthroughs had not been more extensive. In his post-election report, Lee wrote that ‘of course this was a breakthrough. The election results were not good, but also not very bad. Some in the party headquarters were feeling low and others were excited.’40 For instance, when I visited Fu Ching-fan (傅靜凡) in September, he had seemed to be very optimistic about his prospects prior to the election in the 11-seat Penghu District 1. However, in the end he gained only 773 votes (2.46%) and came fifteenth, four places below the lowest winning candidate at 1,645. In fact, Fu’s vote total was actually lower than Lin Chang-hsing’s from 2009. There was even more disappointment for Wang Chung-ming in New Taipei City District 1, though. Despite his rich electoral and movement experience, having a better funded campaign and the district magnitude increasing from 3 to 4, he came sixth. I have added details of this district in Table  4.14. With 6,880 votes (6.3%), his vote total and seat share were actually significantly lower than four years earlier. Therefore, one of the challenges for Chapter 11 is how we explain the mixed fortunes of GPT candidates in this campaign. There were also mixed feelings on the Trees Party’s performance in its founding elections in 2014. Here I will only focus on the level of city/county council elections for consistency and will not examine its candidates for grassroots posts. On paper, the Trees Party had quite an impressive start despite only being formed a few months before the election. It had one elected county councillor in Yilan (Hsueh Chen-yi 薛呈懿), as well as a township mayor in Nantou and a township representative in Hsinchu County. However, like the GPT’s Yang Chi-hsiang, Hsueh was expelled prior to the election. The Trees Party’s Chen Chi-hong (陳紀衡) was elected as Chichi township mayor, and at 29 he was the youngest mayor in

70  Changing impact and human face Table 4.14 New Taipei City Council District 1 in 2014 Candidate

Party

Vote total

Vote Share

Elected

Cheng Yuen (鄭宇恩) Tsai Chin-hsien (蔡錦賢) Cheng Tai Li-hsiang (鄭戴麗香) Tsai Yeh-wei (蔡葉偉) Lu Tzu-chang (呂子昌) Wang Chung-ming (王鐘銘)

DPP Indep KMT KMT DPP GPT

31,928 20,167 18,779 16,421 14,919 6,880

29.26% 18.48% 17.21% 15.05% 13.67% 6.30%

* * * *

Source: Online database of the Central Election Commission

Taiwan. However, he only remained in the party just over half a year after taking office due to disagreements over tree protection in his township. Let me instead focus on the Taipei City Council elections, which had been the core GPT nomination area since 1998. In Taipei, the Trees Party nominated five candidates, including both the former GPT Pan brothers. The results were again mixed. In both Districts 2 and 3, the Trees Party vote was lower than the GPT vote four years earlier. Pan Han-sheng’s 8,623 in District 7 was a significant advance on Chang Hung-lin’s from four years earlier but was still well short of Peng’s 1998 vote, and he still needed to almost double his vote to catch the lowest wining candidate. The best council campaign that the Trees Party ran in 2014 was for Taipei City District 5, which had been the GPT’s worst in the Taipei four years earlier. Here newcomer Lin Chia-yu (林佳諭) managed to garner 9,965 votes or 5.12 percent and was just one place and 4,000 votes behind the lowest winning candidate. Given that the lowest winner, the KMT’s Chung Hsiao-ping (鍾小平), had a number of pending corruption court cases at the time, it was thought quite possible Lin would still be able to enter the city council if Chung was disqualified. In the aftermath of the campaign, the Trees Party was in low spirits. Unlike the GPT, the vast majority of its candidates had not retained their election deposits. According to Trees Party founding member Sheng I-che, ‘after 2014 we had our first internal injuries. . . . After the 2014 election the Trees Party lost many party members. Many candidates were no longer willing to use the Trees party label.’41 Since hosting the Asia Pacific Greens Congress in 2010, the GPT had continued to deepen its international engagement. In my interviews, I found that for many GPT members, their most memorable and fulfilling experiences came in such programmes rather than election campaigns. Wang Chung-ming, for instance, had particular memories of his experiences at the 2012 Global Greens Congress in Dakar, Senegal. He recalled, that year we went to West Africa, we were really doing diplomacy. You need to have allies and know who you are opposing. I tried to ally with the weaker green parties to stand up to European green parties. . . . In those days we went to these events with a goal. What motions would we get passed, what friends would we make. [Pan] Han-sheng wanted to be able to create a Japan/Korea

The impact of the Green Parties in Taiwan  71 alliance. I wanted to create an international impression of us. We tended to stand with those green parties that were not so well developed. So, the big green parties were often afraid of us as they . . . you know the European Green Parties all wear suits, is that right?42 The trend towards increasing maturity and confidence in the GPT’s international engagement was again visible in the 2015 Asia Pacific Greens Congress held in June in New Zealand. Taiwan sent a large delegation that included Co-Convenor Lee Ken-cheng, the recently elected Chou Chiang-chieh and a number of figures who would stand for election in 2016 and 2018. As Asia Pacific Greens Convenor, Keli Yen was one of the main event organisers, and it was here that she was elected as the Asia Pacific Greens Federation member of the Global Greens Coordination Committee. Robin Winkler was the GPT representative on the keynote opening panel. The frequent mentions of the GPT in the post-Congress report reveals how involved the Taiwan delegation was in the proceedings. Among the Congress’ 22 resolutions, the GPT-sponsored number 16 is particularly noteworthy: Taiwan self determination 1 2

3

Recognizing that Taiwan (Republic of China) is a sovereign nation, the Asia Pacific Greens Federation resolves to support Taiwan’s full participation in all international organisations. Recognizing Taiwan’s efforts on cross strait peace, China should respect the basic right of Taiwan’s inhabitants to self determination, give up threat of force, remove its missiles aimed at Taiwan, and halt economic, military, political, social, religious and other policies designed for the annexation of Taiwan. The APGF resolves that all member parties will urge their respective governments to fully respect and support Taiwan’s sovereignty so as to enable Taiwan to fully participate in all international forums and organizations, including without limitation, the United Nations and its subsidiary organisations.43

The failed breakthrough of 2016 As Taiwan approached the 2016 national elections, the overall party system looked quite distinct from 2012 and even from the late 2014 elections. As we can see in Table 4.1, while the GPT could lay claim to being the only real movement or alternative party in 2008 and 2012, it was now being challenged for this position by the Trees Party, Taiwan Radical Wings (基進側翼), SDP and NPP. Moreover, even the DPP was making clearer movement appeals in its nomination and campaign in 2016. Different parties took different strategies to deal with this more competitive environment. The Taiwan Radical Wings, for instance, chose to work with the TSU. The NPP refused to cooperate with other third-force parties but did have an alliance with the DPP that involved the DPP leaving three seats for the NPP to fight against the KMT in return for the NPP’s support for the DPP’s presidential

72  Changing impact and human face candidate. The GPT eventually decided to work with the newly formed SDP in the form of the GPT SDP Alliance (綠黨社會民主黨聯盟). In the run-up to the election, I heard mixed views on the prospects for the GPT SDP Alliance in 2016. While some defectors from the party suggested it would struggle to even match its performance in 2012, party insiders seemed confident they had a real chance of finally entering parliament. One reason for optimism was that, unlike in 2012, the GPT was starting to appear in pre-election surveys. Given that the GPT had received 1.7 percent when it had been completely off the radar of surveys in 2012, that the party was now regularly getting 2 percent in surveys meant it should have a good chance. These survey results are displayed in Table 4.15. Moreover, the party was also enjoying record levels of media attention, something visible in both UDN and Taipei Times reports in Figure 4.1. Despite these high expectations, Tables  4.1 and 4.2 and the 2016 party list results shown in Table 4.16 reveal the GPT’s ultimately disappointing outcome. We can see that the opinion polls were actually quite good predictors for many of the smaller parties, including the GPT, NP, TSU and PFP. In contrast, the NPP’s actual vote share was well down on its last surveys. However, both the NPP and PFP received enough votes to get seats in parliament. The rankings of the GPT and NP from 2012 were reversed, as the NP not only beat the GPT, but its 4.2  percent was also enough to gain government subsidies. There was much disappointment within the GPT that although it had continued to grow Table 4.15 2016 Pre-election Party List Surveys

DPP KMT PFP NPP NP TSU MKT GPT SDP FHA MCFAP NPSU

TISR September 2015

TVBS October 2015

TISR November 2015

TISR December 2015

TVBS January 4, 2016

TVBS January 14, 2016

35.1 22.1 7.2 0.3 0.1 1.9

28 33 3 5 0.5 3 2 2

37.5 24.9 6.5 3.3

33.8 21.5 6.2 6.1 1.8 2.1 1.4 1.5

27 25 7 10 4 3 1 2

28 21 6 11 3 2 1 2 1 1 1

1.4

2.5 1.1 1.4 0.4 0.3

0.3 1.5

Note: Abbreviation not used elsewhere: MCFAP: Military, Civil Servants, Fire Fighters, Academics and Police Party; NPSU: Non-Partisan Solidarity Union. Note: This table is taken from Fell, Dafydd (2016) ‘Small Parties in Taiwan’s 2016 National Elections: A Limited Breakthrough?’ American Journal of Chinese Studies, (23) 1, pp. 41–58. Sources: Taiwan Indicator Survey Research (TISR): Taiwan Mood Barometer Survey, Presidential and Legislative Yuan Election Survey News Release, September 14, 2015; Taiwan Mood Barometer, General Election and Party List Legislators Survey News Release, November 27, 2015; Taiwan Mood Barometer Survey, Survey before Polling Ban News Release, December 31, 2015; TVBS Poll Center: Presidential Survey Two Days Before the Election, January 14, 2016.

The impact of the Green Parties in Taiwan  73 Table 4.16 2016 Legislative Yuan Party List Results Party

Vote Total

Vote Share

Seats

DPP KMT PFP NPP NP GPT SDP Alliance TSU FHA (信心希望聯盟) MKT (民國黨) MCFAP (軍公教聯盟黨) NPSU (無黨團結聯盟) Trees Party (樹黨) Chinese Unification Promotion Party (中華統一促進黨) National Health System Alliance (健保免費連線) Free Taiwan Party (自由台灣黨) Peace Pigeon Union Party 和平鴿聯盟黨 Taiwan Independence Party (台灣獨立黨) Great Love Constitutional Reform (大愛憲改聯盟)

5,370,953 3,280,949 794,838 744,315 510,074 308,106 305,675 206,629 197,627 87,213 77,672 77,174 56,347

44.06% 26.91% 6.52% 6.11% 4.18% 2.53% 2.51% 1.70% 1.62% 0.72% 0.64% 0.63% 0.46%

18 11 3 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

51,024

0.42%

0

47,988 30,617 27,496

0.39% 0.25% 0.23%

0 0 0

15,442

0.13%

0

Note: Although the English name used for 台灣獨立黨 (Taiwan Independence Party) is the same as the 建國黨 (Taiwan Independence Party) which featured in the late 1990s, the two are entirely separate parties. Source: Online database of the Central Election Commission

to 2.5 percent, it was well short of the 3.5 percent needed for government subsidies. While the Trees Party and GPT did not compete in the same districts in 2014, the Trees Party participation in the 2016 party list did have a negative impact on the GPT. Trees Party’s 0.63  percent could definitely have brought the GPT closer to that 3.5 percent subsidy target. Among the GPT’s five best party list locations, though Kinmen and Mazu are hard to explain, Taipei City at 3.35 percent, Taoyuan at 3.25 percent and Hsinchu City at 2.98 percent are noteworthy. The GPT SDP Alliance’s performance in the districts showed both similarities and differences to 2012. Once again, there was a significant improvement in the district vote shares, with a number gaining over 20,000 votes; however, with one exception, none of these really threatened the two main parties. If we divide the district candidates according to whether they had GPT or SDP backgrounds, overall SDP candidates did much better. The exception to this was the second highest vote winner, Tseng Po-yu (曾柏瑜), in New Taipei District 11, who gained 22,487 votes. However, when we consider the top candidate won with 93,962, then we cannot even classify Tseng as semi-competitive. While the district focus was on

74  Changing impact and human face Pan Han-sheng in 2012, this time the focus was on Fan Yun (范雲) in Taipei City District 6, where the GPT had stood in the by-election in 2009. In this case, the DPP decided not to nominate and let Fan challenge the KMT incumbent. Fan, who was one of the founders of the SDP, gained 56,766 votes (35.35%), though this was still well short of the incumbent KMT candidate’s 46 percent. Nevertheless, this was the highest ever vote and vote share for a GPT candidate. While the DPP was willing to leave three seats to the NPP to fight against the KMT, it only left this one seat to the GPT SDP Alliance. In fact, it preferred to leave seats to KMT defectors or even the PFP than the GPT SDP Alliance. Although a number of Trees Party district candidates did run enthusiastic campaigns, the fact that their total district vote was only 30,224, compared to the GPT’s 203,658, reveals how marginal their district candidates were. Despite the significant increase in GPT votes in 2016, the election was perceived as being a disastrous setback. On January 18, 2016, the Convenor of the SDP, Fan Yun, as well as the Co-Convenors of the GPT, Lee Ken-cheng and Chang Yu-ching, all announced their resignations to take responsibility for the election defeat. The recriminations against Lee and his leadership team would begin immediately. While the Lee Ken-cheng era had seen the GPT cross the threshold of local representation, it was still on the margins of the thresholds of national competitivity and representation.

Into the Wang Hau-yu era 2016–2020 Overall, the failure of the GPT SDP Alliance to break through into parliament and the comparative success of the NPP left the GPT deeply demoralised. There was a period where there appeared to be a power vacuum, and the party only gradually got back on to its feet as a new cohort of younger figures stepped into decision making roles and the importance of the elected councillors became greater. The picture in the Trees Party was even worse, as unlike the GPT, it did not have the two elected councillors in office. As Sheng I-che recalled, ‘after the 2016 election, the damage was much greater than 2014. We had to close our office. There were no funds left to keep it operational.’44 When the GPT and the Trees Party came to Liverpool for the Global Greens Congress in April 2017, it appeared that both parties were on the road to recovery. The GPT had a new and younger Central Executive Committee that was beginning to make plans for the 2018 local elections. A major boost for the Trees Party was being accepted as a member of Global Greens in February  2017; it sent a 16-person delegation to the Congress. Thus, now even the Trees Party had crossed the threshold of international green involvement. Prior to going to Liverpool, the GPT and Trees Party held a joint press conference and efforts were made to make sure there were no clashes at the Congress. However, an inevitable question the delegations had to face was why Taiwan needed two Green Parties. Wang Chungming also questioned the new leadership’s green diplomacy in this era, saying ‘the current GPT does not have the ability to do that kind of diplomacy. They don’t

The impact of the Green Parties in Taiwan  75 know what they are doing. They have no idea why they are going to those meetings. It’s more like a tour group.’45 In the November 2018 local elections, there were similarities and differences in the parties’ nomination strategies compared to four years earlier. While the GPT again nominated ten council candidates, the Trees Party nominated slightly fewer with seven candidates. However, the Trees Party again nominated more candidates at the grassroots level. For instance, the Trees Party had eight candidates for township representative, all but one of whom were standing in Penghu. Another major difference was that both parties were much more concentrated in their campaigning. For the Trees Party, the two focal points were Taipei City and Penghu, while the GPT largely concentrated on the neighbouring districts of Hsinchu City and County, as well as Taoyuan City. By returning to Peng Yen-wen’s 1998 Taipei City District 6, we can see how the electoral environment had changed and how far the Trees Party had fallen by 2018. In this district, as with all those contested by the Trees Party in Taipei, their candidates had become mere token candidates. Even veteran Pan Han-chiang in Taipei City District 4 managed only 1,743 votes. Instead, it was the two new movement parties that successfully won seats in this district, with the SDP’s Miao Po-ya (苗博雅), who had stood for GPT SDP Alliance in 2016, and the NPP’s Lin Ying-meng (林穎孟). The 1,805 votes for the Trees Party’s Lin Yi-ping (林逸萍) was only marginally better than Huang Te-bei (黃德北) from the Left Wing Alliance (左翼聯盟). The second Trees Party concentration in Penghu appeared more promising when I visited them in September 2018. Their strategy was to operate a team of candidates with one county council candidate together with seven township representative candidates. Trees Party founder Sheng I-che was hoping to build on his Legislative Yuan campaign in 2016; if he could repeat his earlier 1,523 votes, it would have been enough to get elected to the Penghu County Council. Sheng was contesting Penghu County Council District 1, where the GPT had stood candidates in 2009 and 2014. However, despite running a very impressive campaign, Sheng only received 379 votes, while ex-GPT Fu Ching-fan’s vote was almost identical to four years earlier at 778. This time the lowest winning vote was only 1,280, partly due to the large number of candidates. None of the seven Trees Party township representative candidates were elected, but two came close. In Penghu’s Huhsi District 2, Lin Ruo-shui (林若水) was within one vote of the successful third place candidate; unfortunately for Lin, the subsequent recount did not overturn this outcome. The GPT had hoped to build upon their success of winning a Taoyuan seat in 2014. Since Lo Yue-feng had performed well in 2014 and was standing again in Taoyuan City District 1, the prospects looked good. However, although Lo increased his vote total, he was still a few hundred votes short of the lowest winning candidate. In Taoyuan District 8, a new GPT candidate Ou Yangting (歐陽霆) also ran a strong campaign and gained 8,738 votes leaving him eighth and just over a thousand short of the lowest winning candidate in this six-seat district. Wang Hau-yu, the party’s most well-known figure by this

76  Changing impact and human face stage, won re-election comfortably with 16,292 votes, almost the same as four years earlier, but this time he came third rather than second in District 7. This raises a further puzzle as to why, despite Wang’s active attempts to build a strong base in the Taoyuan region, the GPT was unable to make further breakthroughs in 2018. The largest concentration of GPT candidates in 2018 was in Hsinchu City and County. Here there were five GPT candidates standing in the five Hsinchu City districts. They also had one candidate in Chou Chiang-chieh’s old district in Hsinchu County District 8 and worked with a Trees Party candidate in Hsinchu County District 1. In addition, there were Trees Party and GPT (Chen Kuan-yu 陳冠宇) township representative candidates in Zhubei in Hsinchu County. When I visited the team in September 2018, there was again cautious optimism they had a good chance in at least three districts. These were Hsinchu City District 1 with Liu Chung-hsien (劉崇顯); former GPT spokesman and Central Executive Committee member Iah Tsun-hong (易俊宏) in Hsinchu City District 4; and former Trees Party and now GPT candidate Yu Hsiao-ching (余筱菁) in Hsinchu County District 8. In the end, it turned out the results were better than expected for Liu and Yu and surprisingly poor for Iah. Iah managed just 1,097 votes, far behind the lowest winner with 3,470. In both this district and in the case of Lo in Taoyuan District 1, it was the new movement party, the NPP’s candidate, that was elected. In Table 4.17, we can see that Yu won remarkably comfortably, in stark contrast to the way Chou just snuck in as the second lowest winning candidate. This time Yu came third in this six-seat district. Lastly, in Hsinchu City District 1, Liu’s 4,310 (6.01 percent) was enough to win comfortably, as we see in Table 4.18, coming seventh in this 12-seat race. Both Yu and Liu had been able to defeat multiple mainstream party candidates in their districts. In addition, the GPT township representative candidate, Chen Kuan-yu, also won election in Zhubei. These

Table 4.17 Hsinchu County Council District 8 in 2018 Candidate

Party

Vote Total

Vote Share

Elected

Kuo Yuan-chang (郭遠彰) Huang Hao-chieh 黃豪杰 Yu Hsiao-ching (余筱菁) Lin Si-ming (林思銘) Shang Kuan Chiu-yan (上官秋燕) Peng Yu Mei-ling (彭余美玲) Lin Chao-chi (林昭錡) Fan Chen-kang (范振港) Yang Chang-teh (楊昌德) Lu Hsin-jun (呂幸潤) Liu Hsing-tsao (劉興藻) Tseng Chun-hua (曾駿樺) Huang Hsiu-long (黃秀龍)

KMT KMT GPT KMT KMT Indep Indep KMT DPP Indep Indep Indep Indep

7,262 5,719 5,567 4,923 4,276 4,263 3,063 2,584 2,448 1,804 1,532 1,182 415

16.12% 12.69% 12.36% 10.93% 9.49% 9.46% 6.80% 5.73% 5.43% 4.00% 3.40% 2.62% 0.92%

* * * * * *

Source: Online database of the Central Election Commission

The impact of the Green Parties in Taiwan  77 Table 4.18 Hsinchu City Council District 1 in 2018 Candidate

Party

Vote Total

Vote Share

Elected

Cheng Cheng-ling (鄭正鈐) Tsai Hui-ting (蔡惠婷) Cheng Mei-chuan (鄭美娟) Yu Pang-yan (余邦彥) Chung Shu-ying (鍾淑英) Chang Tzu-yan (張祖琰) Liu Chung-hsien (劉崇顯) Tuan Hsiao-fang (段孝芳) Huang Wen-cheng (黃文政) Tseng Tzu-cheng (曾資程) Lee Kuo-chang (李國璋) Lo Wen-chi (羅文熾) Lee Hsiao-yi (林孝怡) Cheng Kui-yuan (鄭貴元) Tseng Wen-tao (曾文濤) Tsao Yong-ming (曹永明) Liu Sheng-cheng (劉聲正) Chen Tzu-wen (陳錫文) Yen Yi-chi (嚴翊琦) Chen Yu-chen (陳珍裕) Fang Chun-ping (方俊評) Tai Chao-chin (戴朝琴)

KMT NPP DPP Indep KMT KMT GPT KMT KMT DPP KMT Indep Indep DPP DPP PFP DPP KMT KMT Indep (Obasen) Indep Indep

6,998 5,030 4,703 4,560 4,471 4,333 4,310 4,259 4,028 3,930 3,545 3,360 3,314 2,843 2,716 2,259 2,183 1,729 1,590 1,016 468 56

9.75% 7.01% 6.55% 6.35% 6.23% 6.04% 6.01% 5.93% 5.61% 5.48% 4.94% 4.68% 4.62% 3.96% 3.78% 3.15% 3.04% 2.41% 2.21% 1.41% 0.65% 0.07%

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Source: Online database of the Central Election Commission

results reinforced the party’s power concentration in the Taoyuan and Hsinchu region. After the new Central Executive Committee elections in early 2019, Yu and Liu became the new Co-Convenors of the GPT, while other elected members Chen Kuan-yu and Wang Hau-yu were automatically made members of Central Executive Committee. If we compare the GPT’s local elections of 2018 with those of 2014, a key difference is that it had much more variation in the candidate performances. In 2018, about half of its candidates were non-competitive, while the other half were either successful or competitive. The fact that Wang won re-election and Yu retained Chou’s old seat could be taken as evidence that the GPT had also crossed another threshold, that of re-election.

Conclusions In this chapter, I  have shown the evolution of the GPT over its first 22  years, particularly focusing on its electoral performances and international engagement. I attempted to conceptualise the party’s development by considering how it had crossed a series of lifespan thresholds. While the GPT progressively expanded its international engagement, its electoral development has seen much more variation. After repeated setbacks, the GPT made its local elections breakthrough in

78  Changing impact and human face 2014 and was able to build on this foundation four years later. In contrast, despite its initial success at the national level months after foundation, the GPT has struggled to be competitive at the national level in subsequent campaigns. I will return to explaining the party’s electoral performances in Chapters 6–14, including its most recent campaign in January 2020. But before that, I will consider how the GPT’s human face has evolved over time – in other words, who are the GPT?

Notes

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

It should be pointed out that in most cases independents are closer to the KMT. Ho and Huang do not actually treat the CSDP as a movement party. Kao Cheng-yan, 20 December 2012. ‘European Federation of Green Parties Supports Taiwan Green Party,’ http://gptaiwan. yam.org.tw/english_version/solidarity.html. ‘Penny Helps Taiwan Greens Win Seat,’ http://gptaiwan.yam.org.tw/english_version/ solidarity.html. Ibid. Ibid. Chang Chi-huang, 20 December 2012. Hong Yu-cheng, 14 November 2019. Chang Chi-huang, 20 December 2012. UDN Evening News, 24 June 1996, 4. Ibid. Arrigo letter, 12 February 2013. Kao Cheng-yan, 26 December 2014. GPT, ‘In Opposition to  Exportation of Nuclear Wastes to North Korea,’ http://gptai wan.yam.org.tw/english_version/state_nk.html Ibid. UDN Evening News, 18 February 1998, 19. UDN Evening News, 21 November 1998, 6. Kao Cheng-yan, 20 December 2012. ‘Asia Pacific Green Politics Workshop Brisbane, Australia, 25–27 April 2000,’ https:// web.archive.org/web/20060118123420/http:/www.itv.se/mp_hsand/eva/asiapolitics. htm. www.globalgreens.info/history/2005_APGN_Kyoto.html. Chiu Yu-Tzu, ‘Ecologists Press for Less Pollution,’ Taipei Times, 15 February 2005, 2. ‘Asia Pacific Greens Network (APGN) Kyoto 11–13 February  2005  – Report from Australia,’ www.asiapacificgreens.org/news/asia-pacific-greens-network-apgn-kyoto11%E2%80%9413-february-2005-report-australia. Ho and Huang (2017) refer to this group by their earlier name Worker’s Legislative Action Committee, though I have taken their translation of the new name. Meggie Lu, ‘Legislative Elections and Referendums: Smaller Parties Suffer a Setback,’ Taipei Times, 13 January 2008, 3. Meggie Lu, ‘Groups Emphasize Green Diplomacy,’ Taipei Times, 13 May 2008, 4. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Robin Winkler, 27 July 2013. The eleventh-placed candidate in this district gained 1,656 votes, but he was not elected as the gender quota allowed a female DPP candidate to be elected despite only winning 847 votes. Ibid.

The impact of the Green Parties in Taiwan  79 33 Wang Chung-ming, 14 September 2018. 34 Liu Li-jen, ‘Environment Groups Running into Finance Woes, Tight Budgets,’ Taipei Times, 17 May 2010, 2. 35 Even though Wang Chung-ming was born in 1978, he feels like a different generation than those that had their first GPT experience in 1996, such as Pan and Peng. I will discuss GPT generations more in the next chapter. 36 Yang Chang-ling, 20 December 2012. 37 Yang Chi-hsiang (楊志翔) in Hsinchu City was expelled before the election but since he had already officially been registered as a GPT candidate, he still appears as such in Central Election Commission data. 38 Quoted in Co-Convenor, Lee Ken-cheng’s post-election review report: 《神聖與庸 俗──新政治從地方開始！》2014綠黨選舉報告與檢討, 8 May 2015. 39 GPT Post-Election Taipei Review Meeting, 26 December 2014. 40 Lee Ken-cheng’s post-election review report: 《神聖與庸俗──新政治從地方開 始！》2014綠黨選舉報告與檢討, 8 May 2015. 41 Sheng I-che, 12 September 2018. 42 Ibid. 43 Keli Yen, ‘Asia Pacific Greens Federation 3rd Congress 12--14 June  2015 Report,’ www.asiapacificgreens.org/sites/globalgreens.org/files/APGF%203rd%20Con gress%20Report%202015.pdf. 44 Sheng I-che, 12 September 2018. 45 Wang Chung-ming, 14 September 2018.

References Fell, Dafydd. 2016. ‘Small Parties in Taiwan’s 2016 National Elections: A Limited Breakthrough?’ American Journal of Chinese Studies, 23(1): 41–58. Fell, Dafydd (ed.). 2017. Taiwan’s Social Movements under Ma Ying-jeou From the Wild Strawberries to the Sunflowers. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Fell, Dafydd and Yen-wen Peng. 2016. ‘The Electoral Fortunes of Taiwan’s Green Party: 1996–2012.’ Japanese Journal of Political Science, 17(1): 63–83. Ho, Ming-sho. 2003. ‘The Politics of Anti-Nuclear Protest in Taiwan: A  Case of PartyDependent Movement.’ Modern Asian Studies, 37(3): 683–708. Ho, Ming-sho and Chun-hao Huang. 2017. ‘Movement Parties in Taiwan, 1987–2016.’ Asian Survey, 57(2): 343–367. Pan, Han-sheng. 2006. ‘Where the Air Is Thin and Polluted, Create the Oxygen to Produce Rainbow’ (空氣稀薄更加汙濁, 製造氧氣催生彩虹). Available at: http://2012.green party.org.tw/index.php/729 election/election-database/2006election/488–20061214.

5 Who are the GPT? Leaders, candidates and supporters

The changing human face of the GPT: leadership and candidates The next element of my overview of how the Green Party Taiwan (GPT) has changed over time aims to track the changing demographic base of the party. In other words, who are the GPT? At the elite level, I am interested in what kinds of people have led and organized the party, as well as who the party has tended to nominate in elections. This can also help answer the party change question discussed in Chapters 1 and 2. The changing human face of the party is an important part of the party’s issue appeal or image. For instance, if the GPT had largely only nominated social movement activists from the environmental sector, then that could reinforce its niche party image. However, as the data will show, the GPT has been led by and represented by activists from a diverse range of social movements. As movement parties mature and become more institutionalised, they often will attract candidates without activist backgrounds. Now that the GPT is over two decades old, has it also attracted mainstream party politicians or figures that treat electoral politics as their profession? I will try to add some more colour to the picture of the changing human face of the GPT by giving readers brief introductions to some of the key party figures for each of the time periods. However, this chapter is also interested in the kind of people that have supported the party as members, activists and voters. Has the sociological background of Green Party voters changed over time and is its support base similar to that found for Green Parties in other countries? Tables 5.1 and 5.2 offer a rough overview of the GPT’s changing leadership and election candidates. The leadership table shows the convenors for each term and their background. This reveals a number of organisational and demographic changes. The most important organisational changes were the introduction of coconvenors from 2006 and the shift from one-year to two-year convenor terms from 2013. The GPT was the first party in Taiwan to adopt a male/female co-convenor leadership system; other parties, including movement parties, have not followed this practice. Table 5.1 reveals the way that environmentalists have dominated the party leadership, but there have also been some minor and major changes along the way. Peng Yen-wen’s assumption of party chair in 2005 can be seen as the start of the post-Kao Cheng-yan era, with a mainly younger set of leaders but also

Who are the GPT?  81 a more diverse leadership focus. In other words, environmentalists often shared leadership with activists from other fields for the next decade. However, the biggest shift in party leadership occurred in the aftermath of the 2016 defeat, when the focus of power shifted towards a younger generation of locally elected politicians in the Taoyuan and Hsinchu region. Table 5.1 cannot tell us the full story when it comes to the balance of power within the party. For instance, though there were other convenors between 1996 and 2005, Kao Cheng-yan was the dominant party figure throughout that period. Similarly, after the introduction of the co-convenor system, in most cases one of the two convenors was the dominant figure. For instance, between 2013 and 2016 Lee Ken-cheng was more influential than either of his co-convenors.

Table 5.1 Background of GPT Convenors Term/Period

Convenor(s) and Gender

Age and Date of Birth

Background

First Term: 1996 1998

Kao Cheng-yan (高成炎) (M) Shih Hsin-min (施信民) (M) Chen Kuang-yu (陳光宇) (F) Ayo Cheng (鄭先祐) (M) Kao Cheng-yan (M)

47 (1948)

Environmentalist and professor Environmentalist and professor Environmental cadre

1999 2001 2003 9th 2005 10th 2006

11th 2007

12th 2008

13th 2009/3– 2010/3 14th 2010/3– 2011/3

Peng Yen-wen (彭渰雯) (F) Hsieh Jolan (謝若蘭) (F) Lin Sheng-chong (林聖崇) (M) Chen Man-li (陳曼麗) (F) Hong Hui-hsiang (洪輝祥) (M) Chung Pao-chu (鍾寶珠) (F) Chang Hung-lin (張宏林) (M) Chung Pao-chu (F) Chang Hung-lin (M) Liu Li-lan (劉麗蘭) (F) Pan Han-sheng (潘翰聲) (M)

30 (1968)

Chung: 42 (1966) Chang 36: (1971)

Professor and environmentalist Environmentalist and professor Feminist movement and professor Hsieh: Professor and social movement activist Lin: Environmentalist Chen: Environmentalist and feminist Hong: Environmentalist Chang and Chung: Environmentalists

Chung: 43 (1966) Chang 37 (1971) Liu 44 (1966) Pan: 40 (1970)

Chang and Chung: Environmentalists Liu and Pan: Environmentalists

54 (1948) 34 (1971)

Chen 52 (1955) Hong 44 (1963)

(Continued)

82  Changing impact and human face Table 5.1 (Continued) Term/Period

Convenor(s) and Gender

Age and Date of Birth

Background

15th 2011/3– 2012/3

Yang Chang-ling (楊長苓) (F) Robin Winkler (文魯彬) (M) Yu Wan-ju (余宛如) (F) Hong Hui-hsiang (M)

Yang 43 (1968) Winkler: 58 (1953)

Yu Wan-ju (F) Lee Ken-cheng (李根政) (M) Chang Yu-ching (張育憬) (F) Lee Ken-cheng (M) →Liang Yi-chi (梁益誌)（2016/5 (LBGT) Wang Yen-han (王彥涵) (F) Wang Hau-yu (王浩宇) (M) Yu Hsiao-ching (余筱菁) (F) Liu Chung-hsien (劉崇顯) (M)

Lee: 45 (1968) Yu: 33 (1980)

Yang: Professor/ Educator Winkler: Environmentalist Yu: Fair trade entrepreneur and activist Hong: Environmentalist Yu: Fair trade entrepreneur and activist Lee: Environmentalist Lee: Environmentalist Chang: Community activist Liang: LGBT activist

16th 2012/3– 2013/3

17th 2013/3– 2015/3 18th 2015/4– 2017/3

19th 2017/4– 2019/3 20th 2019/4– 2021/3

Hong 49 (1963) Yu: 32 (1980)

Lee: 47 (1968) Chang 45 (1970) Liang: 34 (1982)

Wang YH: 28 (1989) Wang Hau-yu 29 (1988): Yu: 39 (1980) Liu: 29 (1990)

Wang HY: Elected politician Wang YH: Party activist/student Yu and Liu: Elected politicians Yu: Music teacher Liu: Computer engineer

Note 1: According to the GPT website, the role of convenor in the nineteenth term was rotated among the Central Executive Committee members, but I have listed Wang Yen-han and Wang Hau-yu as they were officially Co-Convenors for the 2018 local elections. Note 2: Ages are only missing for those convenors that have not stood for elected office and so cannot be checked on the Central Election Commission’s database. Sources: Green Party website: www.greenparty.org.tw/node/230; Wikipedia https://zh.wikipedia.org/ wiki/%E7%B6%A0%E9%BB%A8_(%E8%87%BA%E7%81%A3); Online database of the Central Election Commission: https://db.cec.gov.tw/

There is a more complex picture of party change in Table 5.2, which shows some key patterns in the GPT candidate profiles in both local and national elections. This shows the average ages, the gender balance and their movement and occupational backgrounds. In addition, where available, I  have added the national averages, allowing us to see how the GPT’s candidate profiles compared with its rivals. Firstly, we can see that the GPT is a relatively young party. Its candidates have tended to be younger or much younger than the average candidate age. The average GPT candidate age was closest to the national average in its first election in 1996, when

Who are the GPT?  83 Table 5.2 Profile of GPT Candidates in National and Local Elections Year

Average GPT Candidate Age and National Average Candidate Age

Gender Balance Male (M) and Female (F) Proportion of Female GPT Candidate and National Average

Occupational Backgrounds

1996

41.5 (Nat Ave 45.7)

10 M 6F 37.5% (Nat Ave 17.4%)

1998

34.25

2008

42.5 (Nat Ave 50)

2M 6F 75% 6F 8M 42.85% (Nat Ave 28.6%)

2010

32.8 (Nat Ave 50)

Social movements: environmental, Indigenous, native language, education, homeless, social welfare, disabled, nationalist Careers: academic, media, music, cultural worker, writer, DPP LY assistant Social movements: environmental, feminist Careers: artist, GPT worker, media Social movements: environmental, labour, feminist, sex worker Careers: LY assistant, education, GPT Party, poet, professor, business (Fairtrade) Social movements: environmental, student, LGBT, S&M Careers: student, GPT party

2012

39.3 (Nat Ave 52)

2014

35.6 (Nat Ave 51)

2016

41.1 (Nat Ave 50)

2018

30.8 (Nat Ave 50.1)

2F 3M (2 LGBT) 40% (Nat Ave 28.6%) 5F 7M (1 LGBT) 41.6% (Nat Ave 31.9%) 9M 1F (1 LGBT) 10% (Nat Ave 29.1%) 10 F 7M (6 LGBT) 58.8% (Nat Ave 33.6%) 8M 2F (2 LGBT) 25% (Nat Ave 30.3%)

Social movements: environmental, Fairtrade, community Careers: education, social enterprise, unemployed, GPT work, school volunteer Social movements: environmental, social welfare, LGBT, anti-casino, Careers: internet, researcher, student, GPT party work Social movements: environmental, feminist, LGBT, Sunflower, labour, student, youth rights, judicial reform, human rights, land justice Careers: professors, architect, lawyer, education, GPT/SDP party work Social movement: LGBT, environmental, youth rights Careers: student, city councillor, councillor assistant, education, barber, internet fan page manager, computer scientist, GPT work (Continued)

84

Changing impact and human face

Table 5.2 (Continued) Year

Average GPT Candidate Age and National Average Candidate Age

Gender Balance Male (M) and Female (F) Proportion of Female GPT Candidate and National Average

Occupational Backgrounds

2020

39.1 (Nat Ave 51)

10 M 7F 41.1% (Nat Ave 38%)

Social movements: environmental, feminist, LGBT Careers: county councillor, education, internet fan page manager, psychiatrist, GPT work, lawyer, professor, musician, organic farmer

Note 1: I have only included years where the GPT nominated more than three candidates. Therefore, I excluded 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2006. Note 2: I did not include a national average age or national female nomination rate for 1998. This is because the GPT average rates listed here are for three different types of elections. Note 3: My review of the backgrounds of the 2020 candidates is at a preliminary stage.

the average GPT age was 41.5 compared to the national average of 45.7. However, generally the gap has been much wider in other elections. The GPT candidates have been younger in local than national elections, as the party has tended to nominate more middle-aged and experienced movement activists at the national level. For instance, in the 2018 local election the GPT candidate average age was 30.8 compared to a national average of over 50, while in the 2016 parliamentary election the GPT candidate average age was 41 compared to the national average of 50. Cross-national research has shown that leftist parties tend to nominate more female candidates than conservative parties, and Green Parties are even more likely to nominate women than older leftist parties (Sawer 2010, 208). Sawer notes how in Germany the Green’s gender nomination quota even had a contagion effect on the Social Democrats, with the latter following suit soon after in a bid to win back female voters (Sawer 2010, 208). From Table 5.2, we can see that the GPT also has generally followed the international green pattern, at least in national elections. In its first election in 1996, 37.5 percent of GPT candidates were female, compared to the national average of only 17.4. More recently in the 2016 national elections, almost 60 percent of its candidates were female. The patterns have been more variable in the recent local elections. The worst case was 2014, where only one out of the ten GPT candidates was female and she happened to be the only one who did not retain her candidate deposit. In the most recent local elections of 2018, the GPT’s ratio of female candidates was again below the national average. The GPT has been even more progressive in its nomination of openly gay candidates. It was the first party to nominate openly gay candidates in 2010. Subsequently, it has continued to have significant proportions of LGBT candidates in both 2016 and 2018. It is unfortunate, though, that the first openly

Who are the GPT?  85 gay candidate to get elected was not from the GPT. Instead, the first to be elected were the SDP’s Miao Po-ya and the NPP’s Lin Ying-Meng, who were elected to Taipei City council in 2018.1 In many East Asian countries, significant numbers of female or younger candidates are dynasty figures that are taking over seats or expanding the reach of powerful politicians’ families. However, none of the GPT’s candidates can be placed in the dynasty politician category. If I were to produce a table like Table 5.2 for the most common type of candidate for relevant small parties in Taiwan, the splinter party, it would look quite different in terms of where its candidates come from. When I examined the electoral history of the GPT candidates, it appeared that they had come from nowhere. In other words, not only had the vast majority of them had not stood for other parties in the past but for most, their GPT candidacy was also their first (and for many unfortunately last) electoral experience. In contrast, most splinter party politicians had previously stood for or had sought nomination in mainstream parties (Fell 2014). In fact, splinter parties have often targeted such politicians that had not been nominated by or who were dissatisfied with their original party. In contrast, social movement experience has been the most common characteristic of GPT candidates. From the candidates’ background column, we can see that although environmental movement activism has been a constant feature, GPT candidates have come from a wide variety of social movements. Based on the ages and life experiences of GPT leaders and core activists, I suggest we can divide them into four generations. The first generation can be considered those figures that were already established in their careers and social movements at the time the GPT was founded in 1996. Thus, Kao Cheng-yan is the most important figure of this generation. I  regard the second generation as those from the Wild Lily generation who graduated from university in the 1990s and had their early social movement and GPT experience in that decade. Peng Yen-wen and Pan Han-sheng thus fit this profile. The third generation is made up of those that did not have GPT experience in the 1990s and who only became involved in the Pan Han-sheng era, such as Wang Chung-ming. I view the fourth generation as those that joined in the Lee Ken-cheng era or even later, many of whom do not have a traditional social movement track record. Next, I will briefly review some of the candidate teams to give a sense of the changing human face of the party in key elections. Looking back at the GPT’s candidate list in its first election in 1996, it still strikes me as a masterpiece in nominating alternative diversity. On its party list, the first place went to the Bunan Indigenous Rights activist and cultural worker Si Chiu Mei (司秋美), and in second place was one of the most important writers in modern Taiwanese literature, Li Qiao (李喬). Columbia University Press described his novel, Wintry Nights, as an epic spanning more than half a century of Taiwan’s history, this breathtaking historical novel traces the fortunes of the Pengs, a family of Hakka Chinese settlers, across three generations from the 1890s, just before Taiwan was ceded to Japan as a result of the Sino-Japanese war, through World War II.2

86  Changing impact and human face In addition to many environmentalist candidates, others were from the native language preservation, the disabled and the feminist movements. An older candidate that stands out was the 57-year-old Kao Chin-lang (高金郎) in Yunlin District 2. He had been a political prisoner for 12 years and was an executive committee member of the political victims association. Kao is also exceptional as he is one of the very few GPT candidates who had defected from a mainstream party and the only one with electoral experience in the 1996 group. He had previously stood for the DPP in 1991 and had joined its primary to stand again in the 1996 National Assembly election. A number of the candidates were university academics or researchers, but others also had careers in the media and music industries or in business. For example, Lin Yen-ling and Ho Ying-yi (何穎怡) had both been executives in Crystal Records (水晶唱片), a company that had been instrumental in introducing alternative bands to Taiwan such as The Smiths, The Chameleons and Joy Division, as well as for its role in the early careers of Taiwanese musicians such as Wu Bai (伍佰), Chen Ming-chang (陳明章) and Chu Yue-hsin (朱約信).3 The profile of GPT candidates two years later for the 1998 local elections was more unified, with a younger group of female activists making up the largest group. They had cooperated with Kao over the previous few years on GPT work, as well as on other social movement projects. The exception to the rule was 42-year-old artist Chang Chen-yu (張振宇), standing in Taipei City District 1. If we consider that only 25 percent of candidates for Taipei City Council were female, then the GPT’s nomination of 75 percent female candidates that year is noteworthy. The 2008 Legislative Yuan election can be taken as the GPT’s second national election with extensive nomination. There are a number of themes we can see from the candidate profiles. Firstly, because of the alliance with Raging Citizens, half of the party list candidates and two of the district candidates had labour union experience. Those nominated by the GPT that year were predominantly environmentalists. Therefore, the Green–Red alliance policy appeals I  will discuss in Chapter 9 was also matched by their candidate profiles. There was also a linkage to the GPT’s early period. Chung Pao-chu and Peng Yen-wen, who had represented the party in 1998, were standing for election again, while Pan Han-sheng and Calvin Wen had both been involved in the early election campaigns of 1996 and 1998. These are thus representative figures of the GPT’s second generation. In the last two elections in the Pan Han-sheng era in 2010 and 2012, the GPT nominated a more diverse group of candidates, who make up the third generation. They tended to have experience in a number of newer movements, such as the Wild Strawberry student movement as well as LGBT rights and Fairtrade movements. In her election gazette experience section, Song Chia-lun highlights her role in establishing Taiwan’s Bondage Domination Sadomasochism Club, reflecting the kind of alternative culture profile the party was starting to project. In addition, nominating two openly gay candidates attracted both media and academic attention. Lastly, many of the candidates also highlighted their experience in GPT party work in their gazette listing.

Who are the GPT?  87 The diverse movement background of candidates was again visible in the two Lee Ken-cheng era campaigns of 2014 and 2016. In addition to the environmentalist and LGBT rights activists, there were candidates with experience in the Sunflower, anti-casino, human rights, land justice and social welfare movements. By nominating trade union leader Chang Li-fen (張麗芬) at the second place on the GPT SDP Alliance party list, the party was seen as making labour issues a priority. As had been the case in 2008 with the Green–Red alliance, the alliance with the SDP in 2016 led to a different style of candidates; at the district level, there was a 50:50 split between SDP and GPT candidates. The local elections in 2014 were also noteworthy as for the first time, candidates such as Wang Hau-yu and Yang Chi-hsiang listed their occupations as internet influencers or Facebook fan page managers. Their arrival marks the start of the GPT’s fourth generation. Earlier, I  mentioned that in terms of leadership, the biggest shift came after 2017, as the leadership was for the first time not held by social movement figures but elected local politicians. When we look at the candidate profile in the first election in this period in 2018, there are also significant patterns of change. Firstly, two of the successful candidates, Yu and Liu, had just switched from rival movement parties (Trees Party and NPP) into the GPT in 2018. The 2018 group was the least experienced in social movement activism of any set of GPT candidates. In fact, it could be argued that some of them had no obvious social movement experience, and some more senior GPT figures did complain to me about this. One such candidate was 23-year-old Yi Chun-ting (易俊廷), standing in Hsinchu City District 3, who did not list any social movement experience apart from working in the local GPT branch. However, what the 2018 candidates did have in more abundance than earlier sets of candidates were political and electoral experience. Four had previously stood for election and others had worked as campaigners in GPT elections. Lo Yue-feng is a good example, as he had stood in Taoyuan District 1 in 2014 and had then worked in city councillor Wang Hau-yu’s office since 2014. Lastly, many of the candidates had experience of holding GPT party roles during the campaign. For instance, Chang Chih-wei (張志偉) (Hsinchu City District 2) was GPT Secretary General; Wang Hau-yu and Wang Yen-han (Hsinchu City District 5) were Co-Convenors; and Iah Tsun-hong and Jia Bo-kai (賈伯楷) were former GPT spokespeople. Having discussed some of the broad trends in leadership and candidate profiles, I will next introduce some of the key personalities in each of the GPT time periods. Selecting who to include and who to exclude was challenging. A starting point was to look at which figures had the most UDN article mentions when searched together with the term GPT. As expected, Pan Han-sheng came out on top, followed by Kao Cheng-yan and Wang Hau-yu. I was surprised to find Hualien county magistrate candidate Chi Shu-ying coming fourth, despite the fact that in my GPT interviews she had hardly ever been mentioned. My selection criteria are not especially scientific, but I have tried to choose figures that have had a longterm impact on the party’s development. I do admit that there is also a degree of bias in selecting figures that I have managed to interview over the project’s eight years.

88  Changing impact and human face

GPT figures from the first ten years Trouble-making founder: Kao Cheng-yan As discussed in Chapter 3, Kao Cheng-yan was the founder of the GPT. Although from Table 5.1 we can see that he was not always the convenor, he was the dominant figure in the party until Peng assumed the leadership in 2005 and remained on the Central Review Committee from 2005 to 2010. In addition to his wide range of social movement networks, Kao also played a critical role in raising the party’s campaign and operating funds in its first decade. Kao has stood as GPT candidate a record four times, in 1996, 1998, 2001 and most recently in 2020. The fact that he was willing to come back to stand for a fourth time in 2020 reveals how committed he is to the party. In my interviews with Kao, it was clear how proud and passionate he remains about the party. Kao studied in the United States in the 1970s and during his time in the US became involved in underground leftist and pro-independence student politics. The group he was part of was called Taiwan Era (台灣時代). This resulted in him being placed on the KMT regime’s infamous blacklist and thus he could not return to Taiwan after receiving his PhD in 1981. According to the first GPT Secretary General, Hung Yu-cheng, Kao’s experience in the US did have an impact on the GPT’s operation. As Hung explained, we did not really have much of a generational gap with Professor Kao and his generation. They had seen the anti-war movement in the US. So when they came back to Taiwan they were very progressive, we had not experienced this in Taiwan. So we felt these teachers were very progressive.4 Forced to stay in the US, he worked for NASA in the 1980s and only returned to Taiwan in 1990, to join National Taiwan University’s Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering. Being a regular academic was never enough for Kao, however. In addition to his work in the GPT, he has served as Director of the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union (TEPU), as well as being one of the key members of Taiwan’s anti-nuclear movement. When I last met Kao in late 2014, I could not help being amazed by how energetic he remained in his anti-nuclear activism even after retirement. One such example of this was a 13-day TEPU cycle tour of Taiwan that Kao led in 2013 to promote a referendum petition on the Fourth Nuclear Power Station.5 Another element of Kao’s profile is that he can be placed in the pro-independence camp, something that the party tried to stress in its 2020 election campaign. He has also shown that he is willing to cooperate at times with the DPP. Former GPT Secretary General Calvin Wen shared his understanding of Kao in these terms: He has very good relations with the DPP. But actually Kao Cheng-yan hates the DPP. Outsiders do not realise this. Our understanding is that . . . he was on

Who are the GPT?  89 the Blacklist, you know about the Blacklist? So naturally he hates the KMT. But he also hates the DPP. But for strategic reasons he sometimes makes a choice, he thinks the KMT is the worst. We sometimes feel he is too obvious in his preference. This can make it look like the GPT is a branch of the DPP. We do not see things like this.6 When I raised this with Kao himself, he explained how he had known many future key DPP figures in his student days in the United States. They had made repeated efforts to recruit Kao into the DPP after he returned to Taiwan, but he had rejected these overtures.7 Kao’s nickname is Gao Guai (搞怪), which literally means to make trouble. Considering his ability to use innovative and at times confrontational styles of campaigning, this seems appropriate. For instance, as I will discuss in Part III, his protests outside KMT headquarters became an important part of his campaign repertoire, even though he has been physically assaulted on a number of occasions. His campaigns to recall pro-nuclear legislators back in 1994, outlined in Chapter  3, were still being discussed in 2019 on politics talk shows. The GPT even issued an election ad reminding voters about Kao’s 1994 recall effort against Han Kuo-yu for the 2020 campaign.8 Linda Arrigo described Kao in these terms: ‘Gao Guai is very sharp and can mobilize people, but he cannot articulate a long term strategy (I’ve asked him), and rather thinks in terms of tricky mechanisms for current tactics.’9 When I last met Kao in late 2014, he spoke excitedly about his latest project, a geothermal power generation plant in Yilan County. In a recent news report, it appeared that although it had begun generating energy in 2019, it was under threat from the local KMT-run County government.10 By the latter part of the Pan Hansheng era, Kao had become less involved in party affairs, and it was clear from talking to Kao that the Lee Ken-cheng era leadership did not value his advice. However, Kao’s candidacy in 2020, together with the advisory role played by founding Secretary General Hung Yu-cheng, represented an important symbolic linkage between the original GPT and the present.

Chang Chi-huang: the beautiful young lady organiser in a mini skirt As discussed in Chapter 3, Chang Chi-huang was one of the three students that first proposed the idea of the GPT to Kao Cheng-yan. Kao joked that he and his colleagues that were promoting the GPT were the ‘victims of this beautiful young lady.’11 She had joined the TEPU in 1991 and worked with Kao in a number of projects prior to the GPT’s establishment. She served as GPT Campaign Manager in the 1996 National Assembly. According to Kao, Chang played an important role in persuading candidates to stand for the GPT on 1996 and then was one of the main party organisers for the rest of the 1990s. In one of my 2012 GPT focus groups, environmentalist Chen Jui-pin (陳瑞賓) joked that ‘she [Chang] wore

90  Changing impact and human face miniskirts to trick me into being the office director.’12 In addition to party work, Chang also worked with Kao on an innovative website to supervise elected politicians that also involved collaboration with television and print media organisations. Chang only stood for election once, in the 1998 Taipei City council election, though her vote share was less than half of Peng’s. Chang was also involved in some of the early GPT international exchanges, and like others, she spoke fondly of the contribution Penny Kemp made to the GPT. Chang was part of a GPT delegation to Europe in May 2000 that included a press conference hosted by the European Greens at the European Parliament in Brussels.13 However, Chang became less involved in party affairs in the post-2000 period. With the post-1998 collapse of the GPT, she first worked as a legislative assistant for an allied independent legislator and later she became more active in the community college sector. She has also spent time living in Europe in recent years. However, from my discussions with her it was clear that she, like Kao, remained proud of their achievements in the 1990s.

Hung Yu-cheng: the founding GPT Secretary General Hung Yu-cheng was the GPT’s first Secretary General, but early in the party’s history he became less involved as he moved to Hualien on Taiwan’s East Coast for graduate studies. Like many of the GPT figures of his generation, he had been a student at National Taiwan University and in his first year witnessed the March  1990 Wild Lily pro-democracy movement. However, a more formative experience appears to have been fieldwork with a student association in the coastal region of Yunlin where Formosa Plastics was constructing the Sixth Naphtha Cracker plant. He became increasingly involved in student politics at a time of rapid political and social change. Many student leaders were being recruited by the DPP, particularly those that were slightly older than Hung and had been prominent in the Wild Lily Movement. He instead became increasingly involved in environmental protests, especially the anti-nuclear movement. He worked on establishing the NTU’s TEPU student branch and then, on graduating, began working for TEPU. Hung described 1993–4 as a highpoint of environmental activism in Taiwan, and like Kao, he was actively involved in the recall campaigns against the pro-nuclear KMT legislators in 1994. In addition, though he also recalls reading about European ideas on green political theory at this time. As discussed in Chapter  3, he devised the initial proposal that would become GPT in 1995 and played a key role persuading social movement leaders to join (Hung 2000). Hung had not joined my earlier interviews over the previous eight years, and Kao had been the only person to mention him in the context of the party’s establishment. When I contacted Hung in late 2019 it was mainly to hear his side of the story on how the GPT was established. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that he was again working hard to advise the current GPT during the 2020 campaign and trying to persuade former GPT figures to return to the fold.

Who are the GPT?  91

Kao Meng-ting: the first elected GPT politician Kao Meng-ting has a notorious reputation in GPT circles. He was the first, and so far only, elected GPT candidate at the national level, winning in Yunlin in 1996. However, he only served as GPT National Assembly member for just over a year, as he withdrew from the party on May 15, 1997, after accepting the invitation from Chang Jung-wei (張榮味) to serve as his deputy if elected Yunlin County magistrate.14 This was not the most acrimonious of divorces. When the news was first announced that Chang Jung-wei had approached him, Kao Meng-ting promised to consult with the GPT, and he stated optimistically that his leaving the GPT would not cause it to collapse and could even help make it grow stronger!15 For some in the GPT, this case was a warning of the dangers of working with unreliable mainstream party politicians. At the point the GPT expelled Kao Meng-ting, he was cooperating with the KMT-linked Chang Jung-wei, who already had a notorious reputation. Chin Ko-lin describes Chang Jung-wei as a heidao (gangster) figure in his book on organised crime and politics in Taiwan (Chin 2003, 97–100). With Chang Jung-wei’s backing, Kao Meng-ting stood twice as an independent legislator in 1998 and 2001, winning election in 2001. He then changed affiliation again by joining the DPP in 2004 and stood for the DPP in 2008. Most recently, both Chang Jung-wei and Kao Meng-ting openly supported the 2020 campaign of KMT’s presidential candidate, Han Kuoyu. Switching party affiliation across the Blue–Green divide is extremely rare, and so Kao Meng-ting has a unique party-hopping record (Fell 2014). Speaking in 2012, Chang Chi-huang recalled how they found it harder to find ideal candidates outside of the greater Taipei region in 1996, and their solution was instead to persuade candidates that might be seeking DPP nomination. She placed Kao Meng-ting in this category. In fact, he had a very impressive CV. He was a professor and head of the Fengchia University’s City Planning Department. In terms of practical experience, he had served on the planning committees in a number of cities and counties in central Taiwan, as well as running a local radio station! Looking back, Kao Cheng-yan was less critical, noting that at least Kao Meng-ting stuck to his election pledge and did donate part of his National Assembly salary to the party.

Linda Gail Arrigo: the GPT’s International Affairs Officer I briefly discussed the role that Linda Arrigo played in developing the GPT’s international relations in Chapter 4. Arrigo is one of the most well-known figures involved in the GPT.16 She joined Taiwan’s opposition movement while doing PhD fieldwork and married one of the Tangwai’s leading figures, Shih Ming-teh (施明德), in 1978. Following the Kaohsiung Incident and the arrest of most of the Tangwai opposition leadership in December 1979, she was deported from Taiwan and, like Kao, blacklisted from returning. While in exile, she helped maintain international attention on the plight of Taiwan’s political prisoners and, in the process, probably saved some of their lives.17

92  Changing impact and human face She was only able to return to Taiwan in 1990 and during this period published a number of important academic articles that shed light on the state of transitional Taiwan. Her piece ‘From Democratic Movement to Bourgeois Democracy,’ in the edited book The Other Taiwan, gives a critical and detailed picture of the DPP in 1991 and early 1992 (Arrigo 1994b). Despite being married to one of the leading figures in the DPP, Arrigo, like those that formed the GPT, was increasingly disappointed and distrustful of the DPP. She would eventually divorce Shih in 1995, partly as a result of his handling of a visit to South Africa in 1994. A second key article, also published in 1994, was titled ‘The Environmental Nightmare of the Economic Miracle: Land Abuse and Land Struggles’ (Arrigo 1994a). In this period, Arrigo got to know many of the activists in the TEPU who would be at forefront of the GPT. As Arrigo recalled, the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union had an office near National Taiwan University, on Roosevelt Road, that just barely managed to hang on and pay the rent. I had been there several times since coming back to Taiwan in mid-1990 (I usually came for two months, then back to my graduate program, twice a year).18 As discussed in Chapter 4, Arrigo joined the GPT as International Officer after completing her PhD and returned permanently to Taiwan in 1997. She played an important role in developing the party’s early international relations. She remained active in the GPT until 2007, when she joined Taipei Medical University.

Peng Yen-wen and Calvin Wen: the GPT wife and husband Peng Yen-wen and Calvin Wen are two of the GPT figures that feature most prominently in this book. I originally planned to discuss them separately, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to make sense to review this GPT couple together, as their roles have often overlapped. Peng and Wen, like many of their generation of GPT activists, studied at NTU’s Institute of Building and Planning. They had first joined the GPT’s 1996 election, particularly helping Ho Ying-yi and Lin Yen-ling’s campaigns. Over the next few years, Peng became more involved in GPT party affairs, serving on the Central Executive Committee and convening the women’s branch. Both began to develop social movement profiles. Peng worked as executive secretary in the Homemaker’s Union, an important environmental NGO. In addition, she was one of the initiators of the New Women’s Toilets movement in 1996 that targeted gender discrimination in toilet provisions.19 Wen worked as a director at the Taiwan Environmental Information Association. Then, in 1998, Wen was Peng’s campaign manager for her almost successful campaign. The departure abroad of a number of key GPT activists, including Peng, has often been cited as a pivotal moment that contributed to the start of the party’s dormant period. Although Wen did accompany Peng for some of her doctoral studies in the United States, he also gained some new political experience, working

Who are the GPT?  93 as a legislative assistant to the DPP’s Su Huan-chih (蘇煥智). Peng showed her commitment to the party by returning in 2002 to help the GPT’s only candidate, Chen Chao-hsun, who was standing for city council in her original Taipei City District 6. After returning from the United States, they played a key role in the revival of the party. Peng became Convenor in 2005, while Wen was the GPT’s Secretary General in 2006 for the party’s first serious campaign of the post-2000 period. Although they both stood as candidates in 2008, it was more to make up the numbers than really to fight to win. Wen had his moment in the limelight in the 2009 Taipei City legislative by-election. However, they gradually shifted to a more secondary role in party affairs, as Peng tended to be on the Central Review rather than Central Executive Committee for a number of terms. After 2011, they moved south as Peng joined the School of Management at National Sun Yat Sen University in the southern city of Kaohsiung. Wen started a PhD in environmental sciences at National Pingtung University and has worked in the Pingtung County’s Environmental Bureau. Peng somehow has managed to balance academic life with intensive social movement NGO work, serving as the chairperson of the Awakening Foundation, Taiwan’s foremost feminist organisation, from 2007 to 2013. In addition, she has served on numerous government gender equality committees at the local and national level, as well as designing a programme to provide training for female grassroots election candidates. However, even as late as 2018 she was still giving advice to GPT candidates in the last round of local elections and did not rule out returning to GPT party work in the future.

Pan Han-sheng: the party’s first star Pan Han-sheng has by far the most United Daily News article mentions of all GPT figures, and if we include his Trees Party elections, then he also holds the record for the most times standing for election. At least prior to the appearance of Wang Hau-yu, he was the closest the party had to a star. For much of the 2006–12 period, Pan was a key component of the GPT’s party image. Like Peng and Wen, he graduated from the NTU Institute of Building and Planning and played a supporting role in the GPT’s 1996 National Assembly campaign. However, his work direction was markedly different, as he developed a career in the financial sector. From 2006, however, he became increasingly involved in GPT party affairs. In addition to standing as candidate, he joined the Central Executive Committee in 2006, serving on most terms until 2013. He was party’s spokesperson in 2009–10 and was Co-Convenor in 2010–11. He joined a wide range of protest movements and was especially associated with tree protection and the fight against the Suhua motorway campaigns. Pan was one of the first GPT figures to embrace blogging, and for readers that wish to get a feel of his campaigning methods, then I highly recommend his blog Give the Earth a Round of Applause (給地球噗仔聲).20 He not only frequently appeared on television and published media opinion pieces, but also published

94  Changing impact and human face numerous pieces in English in the Taipei Times.21 He also was enthusiastic about international green politics and listed as one of his major achievements his organising role in the Second Asia Pacific Greens Congress in Taipei in 2010.22 The experience and knowhow of green diplomacy that Pan accumulated would be critical in allowing the Trees Party to also become a full member of the Global Greens. Although Pan contributed significantly to the GPT’s media visibility, he was also a controversial figure. It was not only his cooperation with the DPP that led to criticism, but also, as we saw in Lee Ken-cheng’s comments on Pan in Chapter 3, some disagreed with his way of running the party. Pan also made the first coordinated attempt to make the GPT into a more professionally organised party, something I will discuss in Chapter 10. Others blame Pan for splitting the GPT and forming the Trees Party, although as Chapter 3 made clear, there was no longer any space for Pan in the Lee Ken-cheng-led party. However, most people I interviewed, though often critical of Pan, did not deny his contribution to the party and hoped Pan would eventually return. As Wang Chung-ming explained, ‘in my view the GPT should be full of oddballs, but different oddballs create a balance so we do not go too far in one direction on the spectrum.’23 Having researched the GPT over the last eight years and met Pan on a number of occasions, I have to admit being deeply moved by his seemingly limitless enthusiasm for the cause of environmental protection. In the latest twist, Pan has been working as the office director for a TPP legislator and campaigned in support for the TPP’s Kaohsiung mayoral candidate in August 2020.

Robin Winkler: environmental defence lawyer In media reports about the GPT, a figure that catches the eye in the post-2006 period is environmental lawyer Robin Winkler (文魯彬). I first became aware of Robin Winkler when observing the 2004 presidential election, as media reports showed him speaking at a Chen Shui-bian rally.24 Winkler first became a household name as a result of giving up his US citizenship to become Taiwanese. He even appeared on a Government Information Office video about New Taiwanese. Winkler had first come to Taiwan as a Chinese language student and has worked in the legal sector in Taiwan since completing law school in 1984. He first became acquainted with GPT figures while recovering from serious illness in Hualien, where he got to know Chung Pao-chu, who had been a GPT candidate in 1998. He set up the Wild at Heart Legal Defence Association in 2003, which states: Wild is a platform for social, economic and political (resource utilisation) change through promotion of the ideas of deep ecology by means of litigation, dialog, conventional and unconventional educational activities. We provide support the environmental (social, economic and non-human environment) grassroots movements.25

Who are the GPT?  95 Wild at Heart became involved in a number of high-profile environmental cases that were focal points for GPT activists, such as Asia Cement’s mining on Indigenous land and the Suhua motorway, both in Hualien. Then, in 2005, Winkler was appointed to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Impact Assessment Committee, together with a number of GPT members, including Lee Ken-cheng. By this time, there was a growing rift between the ruling DPP and the environmental protection movement, and this was visible in the way the committee operated during Winkler’s term. There were also often clashes between environmentalists and local politicians who were supporting development projects, with the development side often using violent methods to intimidate opposition. In one such case, Winkler was verbally and physically assaulted by Yunlin County Council Speaker Su Chin-huang (蘇金煌) while the committee was reviewing a steel plant case in 2007.26 The relationship between the environmentalists on the committee and the DPP government was often highly confrontational. At this time, when Winkler was frequently making headlines, the Peng-led GPT invited him to join, and in 2006 he first served on the Central Executive Committee. From 2006, he was almost always present on either the Central Executive Committee or the Central Review Committee, through until the 18th Central Committee (2015–2017).27 During this time he was also Co-Convenor for 2011–12, which coincided with the January 2012 national elections. Although he has been close to standing twice, he has not yet stood as a candidate for the GPT. In 2009 it had looked like he would stand but he stood down after it was revealed he had not been a ROC citizen for the required ten years. In 2016, he had begun to campaign seriously for the Taipei City Legislative District 1 but eventually, a few days before the registration deadline, he announced he would not be standing.28 Winkler played a critical role in the GPT’s international relations, fundraising, election campaigning and overall party operations between 2006 and 2016. His absence in recent years from GPT party affairs represents a loss on a similar scale to Pan’s departure to form the Trees Party in 2014. I was thus delighted to hear that he formally returned to the GPT in the spring of 2020.

Wang Chung-ming: the Tamsui candidate Between 2010 and 2014, Wang Chung-ming was one of the most visible GPT figures in the media. As far as I am aware, he is the only GPT figure who has been the subject of a biographical documentary film, Unfinished Progress (建設未完成). Moreover, his social activism is also discussed in detail in Chapter 6 of Simona Grano’s book Environmental Governance in Taiwan (2015, 145–165). Wang’s first GPT experience came when he was part of an alliance of bloggers supporting the 2006 Taipei City Council election campaign, which I discuss in Chapter  9. However, he became more intensely involved from early 2010, joining the Central Executive Committee and working on the preparation for the April–May Asia Pacific Greens Congress in Taipei. The international

96  Changing impact and human face green engagement was clearly one of the things on which Wang reflected most fondly in our 2018 interview. Wang stood for election three times, in 2010 and 2014 for New Taipei City Council and in 2012 for legislator. At the time, Wang’s 2010 campaign was the best GPT candidate result since Peng Yen-wen in 1998, and so there was a high degree of expectation that he could be elected in 2014. Although Wang was not the only openly gay GPT candidate in 2010, his candidacy attracted more media and societal attention and played a major role in building the party’s reputation as a promoter of LGBT rights. Wang also was the public face of the party, serving as spokesperson from December 2011 to February 2012 and June 2014 to early 2015. These were critical moments as they corresponded with the 2012 parliamentary elections and 2014 local elections; in both cases, he was also standing as a candidate. In addition to his environmental activism, Wang also was involved in organising the 2011 Occupy Taipei 101 movement, something Wang believes was part of the process that would eventually lead to the occupation of first the Ministry of Interior in 2013 and then the Sunflower parliament occupation in 2014.29 A  number of factors caused him to withdraw from party affairs, including his 2014 election setback, his two prison terms and his unease about the alliance with the SDP for the 2016 election. After release from prison, Wang left Tamsui and moved to central Taiwan. I noticed that more recently he joined the election for the GPT’s Central Executive Committee in March 2019, but despite the fact he had far more GPT and electoral experience than all the other candidates, he only managed to get enough votes to be the top waiting list candidate.30 This reflects the degree to which the party has changed since 2016. One of my favourite moments in this GPT research project was holding a screening of Unfinished Progress at my university and hosting Wang for the Q&A session in July 2020. It will be interesting to see whether he returns to party activism now that he has returned to Tamsui in 2020.

Yu Wan-ju: fair trade, beef noodles and Taiwanese national identity As I mentioned in Chapter 1, I first got to know Yu Wan-ju while she was studying at SOAS and writing her dissertation on beef noodles and national identity in Taiwan. Although the degree of change was not as great as what the party experienced after 2016, Yu represents a break from the past on becoming Co-Convenor in 2012. Although Yu’s husband, Hsu Wen-yen (徐文彥), had been part of the GPT’s post-2005 revival project, Yu’s first direct GPT involvement was standing for election in 2012, while she was waiting to hear her marks from SOAS. She was the youngest Co-Convenor since 1999, and like Wang Chung-ming, she could be seen as one of the GPT’s third generation, as they did not look back on 1996 and 1998 as formative experiences. There were other major differences in her life experiences. She was one of the first leaders without an extensive social movement track record. Instead, she was a businesswoman, running Taiwan’s pioneering social

Who are the GPT?  97 enterprise, the Fairtrade company Oko-Green (生態綠). Moreover, she had even been a legislative assistant for a politician representing the PFP, a party on the Blue side of Taiwanese politics. Yu was officially Co-Convenor for three years, from March  2012 to March 2015. In the first year, she was the more active of the two convenors, but after Lee Ken-cheng became Co-Convenor in March 2013, Yu gradually became marginalised and withdrew from the day to day operations. In the summer of 2013, when I  interviewed Yu, it seemed she was still fully participating, but when I interviewed Central Executive Committee member Chiu Hua-mei about GPT party operations in January 2014, Yu’s name was barely even mentioned. Thus, when Yu was nominated by the DPP to be one of their party list candidates in November 2015, it appeared on paper that she was being poached by the DPP soon after ending her GPT convenor term in March 2015. But in reality, she had ceased being Co-Convenor much earlier. The GPT’s official statement expressed its deep regret at Yu’s decision to join the DPP and stated that if she did not quit the GPT, she would be expelled.31 At the time of writing, Yu had just completed her term as a DPP party list legislator (2016–20). She is now Secretary-General of the Digital Information and Governance Innovation Association of the Legislative Yuan.

Lee Ken-cheng: the reforming environmentalist Lee Ken-cheng was born on the offshore island county of Kinmen and was a primary school teacher for 17 years. Overall, Lee’s profile looks very similar to many of the earlier GPT leaders. He studied under Chen Yu-feng (陳玉峰) at Providence University’s Institute of Ecology. He first joined the GPT Central Executive Committee in 2006 when Jolan Hsieh was Co-Convenor, but it would appear he was not especially active in party affairs prior to standing for Central Executive Committee again in 2013. Together with Winkler, Lee had been one of the environmental movement representatives on the Environmental Protection Bureau’s Environmental Impact Assessment Committee from 2005 to 2007. In 2007, he established the Citizen of the Earth Foundation, which has developed into one of the most important environmental NGOs in Taiwan. Prior to becoming Co-Convenor, he had considered establishing a new party but was persuaded it would be better to reform an existing one, the GPT. It soon became clear that his model of the GPT was starkly different from that of the Pan or Kao eras. He attempted to create a much more institutionalised party. This involved changes in party organisation, issue appeals and alliances. As discussed earlier, his style of leadership alienated many GPT figures. His time in office also coincided with the Sunflower Movement of 2014. Citizen of the Earth was part of the alliance of civil society organisations that made up the Democratic Front against the Cross-Strait Services Trade Agreement, which worked closely with the student occupiers (Hsu 2017). Lee’s term as Co-Convenor saw the initial breakthroughs at the local level in 2014. However, his ultimate goal was winning national representation in the

98  Changing impact and human face January  2016 elections. Key strategies included the alliances with the SDP, as well as with labour unions. However, following the failure to win any seats, Lee resigned in January  2016. He was also subjected to much harsh criticism, and many interviewees described him as being badly hurt by the experience. He has since returned to his focus on Citizen of the Earth and in 2019 published A History of Taiwan’s Forests (台灣山林百年紀), with numerous launch events in Taiwan and Europe.

Wang Hau-yu: the controversial internet warrior As Pan Han-sheng was marginalised in the GPT and then left to form the Trees Party in 2014, he was gradually replaced by Wang Hau-yu as the most wellknown GPT figure. When first elected in 2014, he was one of the youngest local councillors in Taiwan, and he not only won comfortably but also managed to easily win re-election four years later. Although he was elected at the same time as Chou Chiang-chieh, his age and life experiences make Wang arguably the first representative figure of the GPT’s fourth generation. While many GPT figures had their first social movement experience at university, Wang started even earlier. In senior high school, he led a protest movement against school restrictions on hair length.32 He initiated a petition and online campaign that led to meeting the Minister of Education, Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝), and the official scrapping of the hair length regulations.33 The problems facing school children’s lives, like long hours and school uniforms, would be key themes after Wang was elected. He then majored in advertising for his undergraduate studies in the United States, developing many of the techniques that would later be central to his campaign communication. Wang created the Facebook fan page ‘I am a Chungli person’ (我是中壢人) in 2011 while doing his replacement military service. The page quickly became an internet sensation. A United Daily News report just after he was elected reported that the page has 260,000 fans and tended ‘to report the failures of city government such as uneven roads, high house prices, land speculation, and stray animals. Each post would get 5–600 likes and it attracted young internet users interested in politics.’34 The piece contrasted the traditional vote broker style of local politicians with Wang’s ‘Facebook constituency service.’35 Wang’s style of communication is often quite adversarial, both online and in the city council. He has also increasingly used live streaming, as well as becoming a frequent pundit on political talk shows on television. In other words, he is both an internet star and a celebrity in traditional media. He thus has some of the characteristics of the early Tangwai elected politicians, in that though he was one of the few GPT elected councillors, he punches his weight and has become one of the best-known local councillors in Taiwan. He thus has a cult status but also many enemies across the political spectrum. As I discuss in Part VI, he was often criticised by former GPT figures on a number of issues. He also became a hate figure among supporters of the KMT 2020 presidential candidate Han Kuo-yu and Han himself at times directly attacked Wang in his campaign speeches. One

Who are the GPT?  99 of the issues to be addressed in Chapter 14 will be to compare the effectiveness of Wang’s style of campaigning in the 2020 elections to that of the Lee-led GPT four years earlier. Following the GPT’s latest failure to enter parliament in 2020, Wang left the GPT and has since switched affiliation to the DPP.

Sheng I-che: the Penghu youth activist Of all the GPT figures I have met in this project, Sheng I-che ranks as one of the most charismatic and passionate. We first met when he came to my university to give a lecture in 2017 after attending the Global Greens Congress in Liverpool. In the morning we had hosted a GPT panel discussion and Sheng spoke in the afternoon. Even though his audience was much smaller, we were blown away by his presentation! Based on his age, the natural inclination would be to place him in the fourth generation. However, due to his very early social movement activism and the degree he has been influenced by Pan Han-sheng, he’s a better fit for the third generation. Sheng was born in Penghu in 1992. His parents were artists, so unlike many of his future rivals, he is not from a political dynasty family. A formative social movement experience for the teenage Sheng was the 2009 Penghu casino referendum, in which two leading figures were Lin Chang-hsing and Fu Ching-fan, both of whom later stood for the GPT. In his SOAS lecture, Sheng recalled that when they had the casino referendum I was only 16 so I could not even vote. That is strange as in Taiwan you can only vote at 20. So, I thought what can I do, if I do not want a casino in my hometown? I was innocent. So, I took pens and wrote articles and stuck them on bus stops. The cleaners would remove them, and I would stick them on again. I was always talking to my classmates at school about this and in the end the teacher said I should study harder and not always talk about these issues. But I could not stop, as if this was approved then it would have a huge impact on our home. Even though I could not vote, what could I do to protect my beloved hometown?36 Sheng and a group of his peers then became involved in a wide range of protest movements, including beach conservation, opposing a proposed giant Mazu statue, promoting LGBT rights and protecting Penghu’s historical buildings. Another formative moment was meeting Pan Han-sheng. Sheng recalled, I wanted to get into politics but many things attracted me. I was not sure about my identity. But when I got to know the Global Greens and Pan Han-sheng, I started to rethink my political positions, my political worldview started to form and Pan Han-sheng had a big influence on me.37 He and a number of his friends joined the GPT, and he suggested to Fu Ching-fan that he could stand for the GPT and even set up a meeting with party leaders.

100  Changing impact and human face Sheng went to mainland Taiwan to study political science at Tunghai University, though he did admit he was not a perfect student. I am sure his professor, Wang Yeh-lih (王業立), will be glad to know that he often brings political science concepts into his analysis of Taiwanese politics! Because his university period coincided with the peak of social movement protest in Ma Ying-jeou’s second term, it was a hard time for someone like Sheng to stay focused on academic affairs. Following the Sunflower Movement, in 2014 he established Youth Occupy Politics to promote reducing the voting age to 18 and greater youth participation in political life. However, as discussed in Chapter 3, Lee Ken-cheng was not prepared to support Sheng, and so instead he ended up working with Pan to create the Trees Party in the summer of 2014. One of the themes of Sheng’s activism has been the attempt to bring transparency into the murky and often corrupt world of Penghu politics. This meant that, like Wang Hau-yu, he was seen as a danger to many established politicians and has been threatened on a number of occasions. Although Sheng stood for legislator in 2016, his real chance for election was the 2018 local elections, where he stood for county council and had a team of candidates running for township representatives. His detailed policy proposals and local political analysis left me deeply impressed. I was thus shocked by just how low Sheng’s votes were. Despite the setback, I still regard Sheng as one of the people I most admire in this research project. I will never forget his reason for being late for our interview in 2018, as he had been called to save a stray cat in danger. I was interested to note that Sheng decided to support the DPP in the 2020 elections and served as the DPP’s spokesperson in Penghu. The location of his marriage proposal reflects his political ambitions. While I was proposed to in a student flat, he proposed to his fiancée in front of Taiwan’s Presidential Palace.38 Based on my observations of this charismatic figure, I am confident that Sheng will be a successful politician in the future.

Liu Chung-hsien and Yu Hsiao-ching: inswitching Co-Convenors When I saw that the newly elected GPT Co-Convenors for the party’s twentieth term (starting April 2019) were Liu Chung-hsien and Yu Hsiao-ching, I have to admit being a little surprised. This might seem strange to say, as they were two out of the three elected local councillors (Wang Hau-yu was the third councillor). Overall, their profiles and life experiences make them an even greater break from the past than the Wang Hau-yu and Wang Yen-han convenor period (2017–19). While Yu’s age might suggest she belongs to the GPT’s third generation, it would appear that her life experiences make her (and Liu) a better fit for the fourth generation. Firstly, neither has a clear social movement profile nor had they worked on earlier GPT campaigns. Yu had been a music teacher and Liu an electrical engineer. They are both locals from Hsinchu, and Liu remained there for his graduate education at Hsinchu’s prestigious Tsinghua University. There were some similarities with the Wang Hau-yu model in the way that Liu tried to brand

Who are the GPT?  101 himself. For instance, on his election gazette, he noted he was the manager of the Facebook fan page ‘I am a Hsinchu person.’ One of the major challenges for the GPT has been that its candidates have later defected from the party. Some, like Fu Ching-fan, chose to stand as an independent afterwards; others have switched to the DPP, such as Yu Wan-ju and Wang Hau-yu. Perhaps even worse has been cases of switching to other rival small parties, such as Lin Chang-mao switching to the Taiwan Independence Party or Pan Han-sheng breaking away to create the Trees Party. In contrast, inswitches from other parties or even independents have been very rare. If we exclude inswitches from independents, then perhaps the only previous cases were Yang Mu-wan, Kao Chin-lang and Chen Man-li. Yang had stood for the TSU in 2005 prior to standing twice for the GPT in 2012 and 2014. Chen Man-li’s case is more clear-cut, as she had been Director of the DPP’s Women’s Department in 1998 and had been elected a DPP National Assembly person in 2005. But in 2007, she was a GPT candidate and even GPT Co-Convenor. At the time, the DPP officially expelled Chen for this rebel candidacy in late 2011, but Chen responded by saying, ‘the green camp all over the world expelled the DPP long ago.’39 The fact that Yu and Liu had switched into the GPT from rival parties is thus noteworthy. Yu had previously stood for the Trees Party in Taipei City District 2 in 2014. In May 2018, when the GPT had the launch event for its Hsinchu headquarters, though Yu was introduced as part of the team, she was still intending to stand as an independent.40 As late as August 21, a press report described Yu as an independent candidate, but by the time I visited the Hsinchu team in early September, Yu was a GPT candidate.41 During the 2018 campaign, there was more attention to Tseng Po-yu’s decision to switch from the GPT to the NPP in New Taipei, but Liu switched in the opposite direction. Liu had joined the NPP and been on the campaign team for the NPP’s Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智) in the 2016 parliamentary election in Hsinchu City. He made it clear to Chiu and the NPP that he hoped to stand for the party in the 2018 elections. But he soon discovered that the NPP’s nomination process was not transparent and that the NPP was not interested in nominating him for any district in Hsinchu. He initially also planned to stand as an independent. But a Trees Party township representative introduced him to the GPT, and he was persuaded to stand under the GPT label. Despite the fact that Yu and Liu are newcomers with a very different life experience to previous party leaders, one feature that stands out in their first year as convenors was the attempt to reach out to all four GPT generations in the 2020 campaign. This is something I will discuss in more detail in Chapter 14. It also remains to be seen what kind of party identity they will try to develop after the defection of Wang Hau-yu to the DPP in early 2020.

Who supports the GPT? My starting point for examining GPT supporters is the party list votes for 2008–20. The introduction of the party list vote meant that for the first time all Taiwanese, regardless of where they lived, had the option to vote green. Prior to this reform,

102  Changing impact and human face it was only where the GPT-nominated district candidates that a GPT vote was possible, and thus to a certain extent voting GPT had only been possible in Taipei. In Table  5.3, I  have listed the GPT vote shares for each city and county for these four national elections. Apart from the overall rise from 0.59 (2008) to 2.52 (2016) percent, there are some notable regional patterns of GPT support. Considering that Taipei City has been where the GPT has nominated most historically, it is not surprising to see the highest GPT vote shares have been there. Overall, GPT support has tended to be strongest in northern Taiwan, with seven out of the top ten cities/counties in the north. In addition, the more urbanised cities have tended to show higher levels of GPT support. We can see this by comparing the average vote shares of the southern Chiayi City with Chiayi County, with the former coming sixth and the latter seeing the lowest level of GPT support of all cities and counties. Generally, it is the counties most reliant on agriculture where GPT support is lowest. GPT support also tends to be lower in southern Taiwan. We can see this by considering the six special municipalities of Taipei City, New Taipei City, Taoyuan City, Taichung City, Tainan City and Kaohsiung City. While the three northern special municipalities are all in the GPT’s top five, the southern special municipalities of Tainan and Kaohsiung come only tenth and eleventh respectively. A further explanation for these patterns could be whether the GPT

Table 5.3 GPT Vote Shares in Parliamentary Elections by Administrative Districts: 2008–2020 City/County

2008

2012

2016

2020

Average

Taipei City Hsinchu City Taoyuan City Taipei County/New Taipei City Hsinchu County Chiayi City Taichung City Keelung City Yilan County Tainan City Kaohsiung City Hualien County Kinmen County Lianchiang (Mazu) County Taitung County Changhua County Nantou County Pingtung County Miaoli County Penghu County Yunlin County Chiayi County

1.01% 0.74% 0.47% 0.67% 0.52% 0.80% 0.61% 0.71% 0.56% 0.53% 0.48% 0.93% 0.29% 0.18% 0.38% 0.47% 0.44% 0.44% 0.36% 0.48% 0.50% 0.44%

2.77% 2.21% 1.55% 2.03% 1.57% 1.63% 1.77% 1.59% 1.50% 1.45% 1.47% 1.45% 1.03% 1.12% 1.85% 1.47% 1.37% 1.03% 1.12% 1.18% 1.13% 1.09%

3.35% 2.98% 3.25% 2.49% 2.56% 2.50% 2.33% 2.31% 2.60% 2.50% 2.50% 2.19% 3.15% 2.95% 2.05% 1.97% 2.05% 1.89% 1.85% 1.46% 1.55% 1.53%

3.30% 2.93% 3.25% 2.63% 2.62% 2.29% 2.37% 2.39% 2.10% 2.29% 2.11% 1.73% 1.63% 1.71% 1.58% 1.67% 1.60% 1.54% 1.57% 1.73% 1.53% 1.51%

2.61% 2.22% 2.13% 1.96% 1.82% 1.81% 1.77% 1.75% 1.69% 1.69% 1.64% 1.58% 1.53% 1.49% 1.47% 1.40% 1.37% 1.23% 1.23% 1.21% 1.18% 1.14%

Source: Online database of the Central Election Commission

Who are the GPT?  103 had nominated district candidates or has a strong local party network. It is likely that the frequent nominations in Taipei City, New Taipei City, Taoyuan and Hsinchu have boosted GPT vote shares there. In one of the few academic journal publications on the GPT, Teng, Huang and Wu (2015) used GIS and spatial analysis to try to explain the GPT’s party list vote share in 2012. They started with the assumption that GPT votes would be related to environmental protests. However, they found that while anti-industrial protests do seem to benefit the DPP and have a negative impact on the KMT, they do not have a significant effect on the GPT’s votes. Instead, what they find matters for the GPT vote is the socio-economic status of the township. They argue that ‘the GPT’s votes still mainly come from places with high levels of urban development, low sex ratios and low proportions of agricultural workers’ (62). I do not have the data to check whether their findings would also apply to 2016 or 2020, but Table 5.3 suggests the results would be similar.

International Green Party support profiles Before moving on to look at the surveys that Peng and I conducted of GPT supporters, it is useful to get a sense of the characteristics of the European Green Party voter. Close and Delwit set out a number of common features. Firstly, they find sociodemographic variables are important determinants. In other words, there is a higher probability of green voting among the younger age groups, women, urban residents, better educated and those who are non-religious (Close and Delwit 2016, 260). They also suggest that activism is another important determinant, especially what they call unconventional activism. In other words, respondents more involved in new social movements are more likely to vote green. Thirdly, they find that green voters are issue oriented voters and that environmental policy concerns are of paramount importance. This corresponds with studies of the German Greens which found that despite attempts to broaden the party’s appeals to economic and social issues, ‘the chief factors explaining Green voting remain environmental concern and opposition to nuclear energy’ (Rüdig 2012). Close and Delwit conclude that ‘Green voters are also positioned on the left side of the socio-economic political spectrum; they share progressive and libertarian attitudes and promote a culturally open society’ (2016, 260). To what extent, then, do Taiwanese green voters share similar profiles to their European counterparts?

Green Party supporters and members In order to paint a picture of the GPT’s supporter profile, I rely on five types of data. Firstly, I  will refer to 14 GPT supporter interviews that were conducted between April 2013 and January 2014. The second set of data were from party member focus groups I chaired in Taipei and Kaohsiung in January 2014. In both cases, these transcripts have been initially analysed in Lin Sheng-Jr’s MA dissertation (2015). The third data set was an online survey of 116 supporters of the GPT SDP Alliance conducted after the election in early 2016. Fourthly, I  refer

104  Changing impact and human face to a GPT-commissioned national election telephone survey from late December 2019.42 Finally, I will in places refer to comments by GPT political figures on their understanding of who votes GPT. The regional support patterns found in our surveys showed a degree of overlap with voting patterns on Table  5.3. Our member and supporter interviews were heavily concentrated in the special municipalities, especially Taipei and Kaohsiung. In our larger 2016 online survey, though, the concentration on northern Taiwan was even more visible, with over half the respondents based in the three cities of Taipei, New Taipei and Taoyuan. In contrast, we had almost no respondents from many of the mainly agricultural counties, with for instance only a single respondent from the offshore islands and one from the East Coast (Hualien and Taitung). I was curious to see whether there were any signs of change in the more recent 2019 telephone survey, but overall, the trend appeared to be consistent. The poll showed GPT support especially high in the combined Taoyuan/Hsinchu region (8.6%) followed by Taipei City (6.4%), while support was minimal in the far south and combined offshore/East Coast region. In fact, the poll suggested the GPT was the third most popular party in Taoyuan and Hsinchu and the fourth in Taipei City. In other words, we can conclude the urban nature of international Green Party supporters also applies in Taiwan, but there is also regional variation, with GPT support especially strong in the north of Taiwan. Our party member and supporter interviews had quite a balanced age sample, with almost the same numbers in their twenties as those in their forties. However, the online survey revealed a much narrower support base, with over 68 percent of our respondents in the 20–29 age category. In my interviews, it was clear that for many GPT candidates their target voters were mainly from the younger generation. For instance, GPT spokesperson Iah Tsun Hong commented, for those of us born in the 1980s and 1990s, we are accustomed to Taiwan’s free and democratic society. So this is an opportunity for GPT, as for those born after the 1980s and now becoming citizens with the right to vote, we can move beyond the singular focus on relations with China. We can see this in the structure of the members of the Kaohsiung GPT. In Taiwan legally the adult age is 20, but you can join the GPT from 16. So for the last couple of elections, we have had more and more volunteers that are high school students and university students, joining GPT in the Kaohsiung party branch.43 In contrast, Iah expressed a more critical view of the older generation: Taiwan lifted martial law in 1987 and I do not hold out any hopes for those people, I mean in Taiwan. Only a minority of that generation, such as those in the Wild Lily social movement or those in the Tangwai . . . do they have any sense about the link between politics and our everyday life? Most (older) Taiwanese were terrified by their experiences of White Terror, so they are very apathetic to politics, but ignorance and political apathy cannot make politics better.44

Who are the GPT?  105 The more recent 2019 survey suggested that the age profile of GPT supporters mirrors that found in other movement parties such as the NPP and SBP. In other words, they enjoyed the most support among voters in the 20–29 group, followed by those aged 30–39. There was a degree of overlap between age and education in our surveys. With the exception of some of the older party supporters, almost all the 2013–14 interviewees had at least university education. On the 2016 online survey, almost 60 percent of the respondents were students, and almost all those that had graduated had at least university education and a large proportion (over 20 percent) at least an master’s degree or higher. In short, we can say again that GPT supporters correspond with their international counterparts in being younger and better educated. One aspect where the GPT supporter background does not necessarily match the international profile appears to be gender. Although the 2013 interviews showed a similar number of male and female cases, our large 2016 online survey had a large gender imbalance, with 62.9  percent male. As discussed earlier, in some local elections such as 2014 and 2018 local elections, the GPT struggled to nominate enough female candidates. It appears that the current party membership, at least at the level of active members, does have a gender imbalance. One senior GPT figure described the current party activist base in these terms: ‘this is like senior high school boys, a bunch of boys.’45 The party does enforce a gender quota for its convenor and Central Executive Committee, and this plays an important balancing role. For instance, when I examined the 2019 Central Executive Committee member voting record, it was clear that there was a gender imbalance. Out of the 17 GPT Central Executive Committee candidates, only three were women. Despite the fact two of them were former Co-Convenors, they all received very few votes and were automatically elected only due to the gender quota.46 Interestingly, in the 2019 pre-election survey, the GPT actually had much higher female than male support figures, and in fact, it was one of only Taiwanese parties with a higher proportion of female than male supporters.47 Nevertheless, due to limitations of data, the gender imbalance in the support base should not be exaggerated. If we consider this from a LGBT angle, then at least based on party patterns seen among party activists and nominated candidates, we can surmise that the GPT had a much higher than average support level among gay voters. The final dimension of the supporters’ sociological background we wanted to test was their family’s party affiliation. In other words, were they coming from predominantly KMT, DPP or non-partisan families? Lin Sheng-jr concludes that while GPT supporters in the south are more likely to be from DPP families, those in north and central Taiwan had more diverse party backgrounds (Lin 2015, iv). In the 2016 survey, we found that over 40 percent stated their families did not tend to support any other party in particular. Out of those that did have a family party loyalty, 30.2 percent stated the DPP and another 20.7 percent claimed to be from KMT families. In the 2019 pre-election survey, when GPT supporters were asked about their preferred presidential candidate, 60 percent opted for the DPP’s Tsai, but there were also over 10 percent preferring the KMT (Han) or PFP (Soong)

106  Changing impact and human face candidate. GPT supporters were less supportive of the DPP candidate than those of either the NPP or SBP supporters. Overall, then, we can conclude that GPT supporters come from a diverse range of partisan family backgrounds. In fact, when we asked respondents in interviews why they were attracted to the GPT, one of the most common answers was their dislike of the mainstream parties. This GPT support’s words are quite typical: because, to tell you the truth, the reason I voted GPT, maybe it is not because the GPT is especially good. . . . Because to tell you the truth, in recent years the GPT has not been so visible in newspapers and magazines. I voted GPT because I hate the KMT and the DPP. The reason I voted GPT is that it still has some ideals!48 This partly explains why for some GPT members the idea of working with a mainstream party is often a sensitive one. When it came to the issue orientation of GPT voters, there were some similarities with their international counterparts. I have summarised the most common reasons for GPT respondents voting for the party in 2016 in Table 5.4. If we combine the three or four issue options with an environmental focus, we can also see how this remains a core component of the party’s appeal. In our 2013 interviews, we also found a similar pattern in that environmental concerns were by far the most common reason supporters listed for opting for the GPT. As one supporter explained, ‘it’s mainly because they pay more attention to environmental issues. That they promote about. . . . I feel what attracted me was the sustainability part.’49 Of course, the party’s environmental appeal has diversified from its initial concentration on nuclear power, so for instance, animal rights are shown to be salient in the survey. Similarly, we had a number of cases where interviewed supporters raised GPT-linked campaigns to protect endangered dolphins as well as protection for stray animals as things that had attracted them to the party. Our 2016 survey found the top ranked single issue was gender equality and gay marriage, reflecting the GPT’s post-2010 issue appeals and candidate Table 5.4 Issues That Led Supporters to Support the GPT SDP Alliance Rank

Issue

Percentage

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Sexual equality, LGBT marriage rights Environmental protection and ecological sustainability Labour rights and dignity Land and residential justice, agricultural issues Tax system, pensions reform, economic fairness Animal rights and animal protection Anti-nuclear Reducing the voting age to 18 and political transparency State provision of child care and elderly care

63.8 62.9 54.3 52.6 22.4 19 12.9 12.1 8.6

Note: Respondents were allowed up to three choices.

Who are the GPT?  107 profile. While in Europe those without religion are more likely to be Green Party supporters, we did not add a question on religion in our survey. However, since Christian Taiwanese are the most opposed to gay marriage, we can hypothesise that GPT supporters are less likely to be religious. In our interviews, one supporter explained how she had been challenged at her church over her support of the GPT due to the party’s advocacy of same-sex marriage.50 We found the LGBT advocacy had more of an attraction to GPT members. One such example was Yang Jhih-da (楊智達), who was still a student at the time we did the Kaohsiung party member focus group. He would then go on to be a core member of the GPT’s 2014 Kaohsiung local election campaign, with its LGBT rights activist candidate Liang Yi-chi. Then, in 2016, he stood for election in Tainan for the party. The 2016 survey showed that the GPT’s youth-oriented appeals had attracted supporters. Here the call for reducing the voting age clearly fits this category. I discussed how important this issue was to some activists, such as in the case of Sheng I-che in Chapter 3. However, other items in the survey also have generational implications. For instance, labour rights include a focus on the fact that younger voters face stagnant wages, long working hours and insecure temporary contract work. Similarly, the unsustainable and biased pensions system has often been framed as an issue of generational injustice. Political parties in Taiwan often appeal to voters on issues of national identity or relations with China. We did not ask a specific question on this in the 2016 survey, but on the question of what would make you more likely to vote GPT SDP Alliance in the future, only 16.4 percent opted for a clearer national identity stance. Although most activists and party figures support Taiwan’s de facto independence, we found supporters actually generally appreciated the fact that the GPT did not centre its communications on this topic. As one explained, let me tell you, young people in Taiwan today, they have a good life. Young people today don’t say ‘I want to be independent.’ They don’t think about that as much as before. We have a good life now. Do you believe it? If you keep shouting independence, unification all day, people will feel annoyed. We are a country now, why do you need to keep repeating those things?51 In other words, for some, deemphasising national identity and China relations gave the GPT a distinctive appeal compared to other parties. A final component of the international Green Party supporter profile outlined in Close and Delwit’s study was involvement in new social movements. Although we did not ask a specific question in the 2016 survey on movement participation, many of them did raise movement linked issues that first attracted them to the party. Involvement in social movements was a repeated theme for party supporters, members and even candidates in how they became attracted to and engaged with the GPT. Once again Yang Jhih-da is a representative case. In his TED Tainan talk, he explains how during his college life he started to join a range of social movements, including anti-nuclear, LGBT rights and anti-media monopoly

108  Changing impact and human face campaigns. This led to him to get to know local GPT members, joining the party, becoming an activist and eventually even standing for election.52

Conclusions In this chapter, I examined the topic of party change through the question of who the GPT are. I first looked at broad trends in the profile of its party leaders and candidates. I  introduced the idea that we can distinguish between four generations of GPT figures based on their ages but especially their life and movement experiences. I then looked at the human profile of the candidates in more depth by introducing the personalities of a number of the colourful figures that feature in the history of the party. Finally, I moved from the elite to the mass level. In other words, I switched to looking at the question of who supports the party. After reviewing some of the trends in regional GPT voting patterns, I then used a range of material to paint a picture of the key characteristics of GPT supporters. When comparing them to their international counterparts, I found that actually GPT supporters share many of the sociological and issue orientations with European Green Party supporters. In the next nine chapters, I will shift the focus to explaining the big why questions in this study. In other words, why has the party changed its issue emphasis and how can we best explain its electoral fortunes? I will first look at the party’s initial electoral experiences in the 1990s.

Notes 1 Miao had been a GPT SDP Alliance candidate in 2016 but was nominated by the SDP. 2 http://cup.columbia.edu/book/wintry-night/9780231122016. 3 Lin Yen-ling later changed her name to Lin Tzu-ling (林子淩) and did serve on the GPT’s Central Review Committee from 2013 to 2017. 4 Hung Yu-cheng, 14 November 2019. 5 By Lee I-chia, ‘Anti-nuclear Cycling Team Returns from Petition Trip,’ Taipei Times, 19 June 2013, 4. 6 Calvin Wen, 2 January 2014. 7 Kao Cheng-yan, 26 December 2014. 8 www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTyqkNcQ_PA. 9 Linda Arrigo, letter, 12 February 2013. 10 Sean Lin, ‘Rival Geothermal Projects Raising Heat in Yilan County,’ Taipei Times, 12 September 2019, 2. 11 Kao Cheng-yan, 20 December 2012. 12 Chen Jui-pin, 20 December 2012. 13 UDN Evening News, 11 May 2000, 8. 14 UDN Evening News, 15 May 1997, 4. 15 Ibid. 16 For more details, see Linda Arrigo’s website (www.linda-gail-arrigo.org/) and her Chinese autobiography: A Beautiful View From the Brink: Linda Gail Arrigo and the Taiwan Democratic Movement (Arrigo and Lin 2011). 17 Richard Hazeldine, ‘Community Compass: PROFILE: Linda Arrigo: A  Permanent Voice,’ Taipei Times, 2 September 2008, 4. 18 Linda Arrigo, letter, 12 February 2013.

Who are the GPT?  109 19 www.bp.ntu.edu.tw/?p=3274. 20 https://panhan3.pixnet.net/blog. 21 For instance, Pan Han-sheng, ‘The DPP Goes from Green to Black,’ Taipei Times, 29 May 2007, 8. 22 2012 Taipei City District 7 Gazette, http://bulletin.cec.gov.tw/. 23 Wang Chung-ming, 14 September 2018. 24 https://news.tvbs.com.tw/other/500105. 25 http://en.wildatheart.org.tw/about_us. 26 Wild at Heart, ‘Yunlin County Assembly Head Su Chin-huang Found Guilty of Battery of Robin Winkler During Formosa Plastics Steel Plant Meeting,’ https://en.wildatheart. org.tw/story/109/6783. 27 The one term he missed was 2012–13. 28 www.facebook.com/RobinWinkler.tw/posts/1188994854448890. 29 Wang Chung-ming, 14 September 2018. 30 www.greenparty.org.tw/sites/default/files/upload/lu_dang_dang_yuan_da_ hui_2019nian_3yue_9ri_.pdf. 31 www.greenparty.org.tw/news/20151110/308. 32 Mo Yan-chih, ‘Debate Sparked on Hair Freedom,’ Taipei Times, 13 August 2005, 2. 33 https://castnet.nctu.edu.tw/index.php/castnet/article/5914?issueID=446 34 UDN Evening News, 30 November 2014, B1 (Taoyuan). 35 Ibid. 36 Sheng I-che, 4 April 2017 37 Sheng I-che, 12 September 2018. 38 I am delighted to confirm that the answer was ‘yes’ in both cases. 39 GPT, ‘The Green Camp Expels the DPP, the GPT Gives it a New Black Gold Flag’ (綠色陣營開除民進黨，綠黨致贈黑金新黨旗), www.coolloud.org.tw/node/12425. 40 UDN Evening News, 13 May 2018, B2 (Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Miaoli). 41 UDN Evening News, 21 August 2018, B2 (Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Miaoli). 42 GPT Survey commissioned to Zhanxin Survey Center (展新民調), Presidential Election Survey, December 23, 2019. Supplied to author by Wang Hau- yu. 43 Iah Tsun-hong, 4 April 2017. 44 Ibid. 45 Lin Cheng-hsiu, 14 September 2018. 46 www.greenparty.org.tw/sites/default/files/upload/lu_dang_dang_yuan_da_ hui_2019nian_3yue_9ri_.pdf. 47 The other party with more female than male support in this survey was the KMT. 48 Party supporter, 21 June 2013. 49 Party supporter, 10 August 2013. 50 Party supporter, 3 April 2013. 51 Party supporter, 6 July 2013. 52 Yang Jhih-da, TEDxTainan, 10 April 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGz0Bp5PF xA&list=PLwDLSJRoHNLAjkVUArWwAFScQcOic6o8K.

References Arrigo, Linda Gail. 1994a. ‘The Environmental Nightmare of the Economic Miracle: Land Abuse and Land Struggles in Taiwan.’ Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 26(1–2). Arrigo, Linda Gail. 1994b. ‘From Democratic Movement to Bourgeois Democracy: The Taiwan Democratic Progressive Party in 1991.’ In Murray Rubinstein (ed.), The Other Taiwan: 1945 to the Present. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 145–180. Arrigo, Linda Gail; 林佳瑩 (Lin, Rose Chia-yin). 2011. 美麗的探險: 艾琳達的一生 [A Beautiful View from the Brink: Linda Gail Arrigo and the Taiwan Democratic Movement]. Taipei: 遠景出版事業有限公司.

110  Changing impact and human face Chin, Ko-lin. 2003. Heijin: Organized Crime, Business and Politics in Taiwan. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. Close, Caroline and Pascal Delwit. 2016. ‘Green Parties and Elections.’ In Emily Van Haute (ed.), Green Parties in Europe. London: Routledge, 241–264. Fell, Dafydd. 2014. ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go? Patterns of Party Switching in Multiparty Taiwan.’ Journal of East Asian Studies, 14(1): 31–52. Grano, Simona. 2015. Environmental Governance in Taiwan. London. Routledge. Hsu, Szu-chien. 2017. ‘The China Factor and Taiwan’s Civil Society Organizations in the Sunflower Movement: The Case of the Democratic Front against the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement.’ In Dafydd Fell (ed.), Taiwan’s Social Movements under Ma Ying-jeou From the Wild Strawberries to the Sunflowers. Abingdon; New York: Routledge, 134–153. Hung, Yu-cheng. 2000. ‘Movement Life Dwelt in/on Homelessness.’ Unpublished MA Thesis, National Dong Hwa University. Graduate Institute of Ethnic Relations and Cultures. Lin, Sheng-Jr (林聖智). 2015. ‘Preliminary Study of Green Party Taiwan Supporters’ Voting Behavior’ (臺灣綠黨支持者投票考量與特性之初探). MA Thesis, National Sun Yat Sen University. Rüdig, Wolfgang. 2012. ‘The Perennial Success of the German Greens.’ Environmental Politics, 21(1): 108–130. Sawer, Marian. 2010. ‘Women and Elections.’ In Lawrence Leduc, Richard Niemi and Pippa Norris (eds.), Comparing Democracies 3. London: Sage, 202–222. Teng, Chih-sung (鄧志松), Huang Chia-feng (黃嘉芳), Wu Chin-en (吳親恩) 2015. ‘Environmental Protest and Green Party Vote Share: An Investigation of Party List Vote in the 2012 Legislative Election.’ Electoral Studies 選舉研究 ； 22卷2期 (2015/11/01): 41–69.

Part III

The first decade 1996–2005

6 The GPT’s first election in 1996 Professor Kao catching missiles

The first campaign of 1996 We now return to early 1996 and the GPT’s first election campaign. In Chapter 3, I  described the process that led to the party’s formation, less than two months before the March 1996 National Assembly elections. Then, in Chapter 4, I discussed the GPT’s actual election results at both the national and district levels, and in Chapter 5, I introduced the life stories of some of the leading actors in the 1996 elections. The next step is to examine my ‘how’ and one of my ‘why’ questions for the 1996 election. Thus, in this chapter, I will first analyse the GPT’s first campaign in order to answer the question of what is the GPT? Then I will attempt to explain its impressive first election performance. Considering the proximity of the election, it is not surprising that there was a high degree of continuity between the GPT’s 1996 campaign issues and those that were highlighted in the founding declaration, which was discussed in Chapter 3. On the GPT’s original website, it stated that the common programme for its candidates was the following three points: 1 2 3

political waste recycling: the elected national assembly representative would donate 80% of their salary to the movements for social justice and ecological sustainability, organize a parliamentary monitoring foundation: to promote and speed up the legislation of important laws crucial to the people’s daily life, promote the movement for a green constitution based on Taiwan ecological circle.1

Not only were these appeals highlighted during the campaign, they also featured in the policy proposal column of almost all GPT candidates on their election gazettes. Out of the 13 GPT district candidates, these three appeals were included on the policy proposals of 11 of them. Moreover, in the majority of cases they only listed these three common policies. This meant that compared to the highly individual policy proposals of the mainstream parties’ candidates, the GPT candidates largely followed a very coherent platform. There were only a few minor exceptions. A few candidates added some further appeals. For instance, GPT

114  The first decade spokesperson and candidate Ho Ying-yi also called for education reform, gender equality and supporting the Indigenous Rights movement. Kao Chin-lang added a few points that reflected his Taiwanese nationalist ideology, such as tagging on the following at the end of point three in parentheses: ‘the ideal of establishing an independent state’ (理想的獨立建國). The two that did not include the common platform just had the following short slogan: ‘want native language, don’t want votes’ (要母語, 不要選票). Another of the motivating factors in the establishment of the GPT in 1996, raised by Kao Cheng-yan and discussed in Chapter 3, was the referendum held in Taipei City on the Fourth Nuclear Power Station on the same day as the National Assembly election on March 23. Therefore, many of the GPT’s Taipei campaign activities were designed to promote participation and awareness of the referendum. For instance, the GPT together with a number of anti-nuclear groups held the ‘March 17, Rock Anti-Nuclear Big March’ (三一七搖滾反核大遊行).2 That day a delegation of Tao Indigenous People from Lanyu held a press conference to endorse the GPT’s three anti-nuclear candidates in Taipei City.3 Along with the Fourth Nuclear Power Station, another key concern of the anti-nuclear movement has been the siting of a nuclear waste storage plant on Lanyu. A common GPT strategy in the campaign was to challenge or attack the presidential candidates. On the nuclear issue, the party particularly targeted both the NP supported and KMT camps. For instance, on March 21, Kao and the GPT’s Taipei City District 1 candidate Liao Cheng-kuo (廖正國) protested outside the NP-supported presidential candidate’s headquarters against NP politicians’ public burning of thousands of nuclear referendum voting cards.4 Since the GPT did not have a presidential candidate, an important question was whether it would endorse any candidate. For instance, at the time of foundation, Central Executive Committee member Shih Hsin-min (施信民) explained that the party was inclined to support the DPP presidential team but that social movement groups held different views on this.5 In the campaign, the GPT neither openly endorsed nor directly attacked the DPP team. Instead, it concentrated its attacks on the NP-supported Lin Yang-kang (林洋港) and Hao Pei-tsun (郝柏村), as well the front runner, the KMT’s president, Lee Teng-hui. On Tree Planting Day, the GPT led a protest in front of the Presidential Palace, in which Kao criticised Lee for his government’s support for numerous ecologically damaging golf course developments. In the 1990s, opposition to the KMT government’s enthusiastic support of golf course development was an important focus of environmental groups (Tang and Tang 1999). Kao also generated some press coverage from protests outside properties owned by Lee and his family. In one such case, he accused Lee of having obtained a luxury property corruptly by colluding with developers while he was Taipei mayor.6 One exception on the lack of direct attacks on the DPP came on the day before voting day. The GPT openly criticised the DPP for its last-minute slogan of ‘Concentrate votes on the DPP and let the GPT candidates return to their social movement work’ (集中投票給民進黨，讓綠黨候選人回去 搞社運).7 The next time the DPP felt seriously threatened by movement parties, 20 years later in 2016, it would make a similar appeal.

The GPT’s first election in 1996  115 Given that the 1996 elections were being held at the time of the 1995–6 crossStrait tensions, it is not surprising that issues related to China–Taiwan relations and national identity were more salient than perhaps any of the subsequent presidential elections until 2020. This meant that it was harder for the GPT to gain media attention on environmental or social issues. But, according to GPT Secretary General Hung Yu-cheng, Kao was very effective in dealing with the crisis. So one of the things that helped the campaign was when Professor Kao went to catch missiles. Do you know about that? At the time Lee Teng-hui was standing for election and China had missile tests near Taiwan. Later Lee Tenghui said they were not armed warheads. Professor Kao went to Kongliao, the place we oppose the nuclear power station. He went out to sea with some fishermen saying he would intercept missiles. That is the kind of protest that we associate with Greenpeace.8 This allowed the GPT to gain significant domestic and international media attention, as he brought international journalists with him. On returning from the trip, the UDN reported GPT figures as saying that of all Taiwan’s parties, the GPT is the only one to go deep into the Chinese military exercise zone, proving that the GPT loves Taiwan the most.9 In fact, Kao often challenged other candidate teams to join him on such missile interception boat trips. On one such occasion, Kao accused the Lin and Hao camp of defeatism in the face of Chinese threats.10 Hung also believes that Kao’s missile interception trip was what caused the European Green Parties to become aware of the existence of the GPT.11 The crisis also brought questions of Chinese and Taiwanese nationalism to the fore. My review of the election gazettes showed that some GPT candidates did prioritise issues related to Taiwanese identity and nation building, such as protecting native languages. An example during the campaign was the anti-unification march held in five Taiwanese cities. A United Daily News report noted that both DPP and GPT candidates joined and that though the GPT was not the organiser, it and other social movement groups participated under the slogan of ‘Taiwan does not belong to China’ (台灣不屬於中國).12 At this stage, the GPT had quite a clear-cut Taiwanese nationalist stance. This was revealed in a noteworthy GPT event in Hong Kong one year later, in 1997. On the eve of the UK’s handover of Hong Kong to China, Kao led a GPT protest outside Hong Kong’s Government House. Wearing GPT T-shirts, they held a bilingual GPT banner saying ‘One Taiwan, One China’ (台灣中國. 一邊一國).13 According to Hung Yu-cheng, another important feature of the 1996 campaign was a new campaigning model that incorporated low spending and environmental considerations. These would be core principles in all subsequent GPT campaigns. As Hung recalled, ‘also we did not spend much on GPT elections. We created some interesting campaign models. We did not have cars, so we campaigned on bicycles. Later all GPT candidates campaigned on bikes.’14 In fact, when the GPT set up its national campaign headquarters, it announced it would not stick up election posters or use election loudspeaker vans.15 The day after the election, Kao

116  The first decade proudly told a reporter the GPT had spent only four million on 13 candidates, which was the amount other parties spent on a single candidate.16 He added that they were now getting ready for the next round of elections.

Understanding the limited breakthrough of 1996 Although it had only been formed less than two months before the election, had very limited resources and only one of its candidates had ever stood before, many of its candidates were surprisingly competitive. Naturally, the GPT’s first election performance cannot match that of the NP in 1995, but that is not really a fair comparison. The NP already had a group of incumbent legislators, some of whom had central government experience and rich financial resources.17 A better comparison is with the earlier movement or leftist parties such as the Worker’s Party and the Chinese Social Democratic Party (CSDP). The CSDP did manage a higher national vote share in its first National Assembly election in 1991 of 2.1 percent, but this was partly because it was much better funded and so was able to nominate a total of 58 candidates compared to the GPT’s 16. However, the average GPT candidate’s voter share was far higher than that of the CSDP, and in fact only one or two CSDP candidates could be even put in the semicompetitive category. The GPT’s performance in 1996 thus raises three questions. Firstly, why was the party’s overall performance so impressive? Secondly, why was there considerable variation in the various GPT candidates’ levels of competitiveness? Thirdly, why was Kao Meng-ting the most successful of all, as the only GPT candidate actually elected? In order to answer these questions, I will consider the two main dimensions of the explanatory framework laid out in Chapter 2, namely the state of party system competition and the GPT’s ability to balance vote maximisation with its core values in its own electoral strategy.

Competing party strategies The first place to look for explaining the GPT’s impact in 1996 is the party system at the time. If we compare the party system facing the GPT in 1996 with that facing the similar case of the CSDP for its first election in 1991, then in some ways the GPT was confronted with an even more hostile environment. In 1991 when the CSDP was attempting to become the third relevant party, it was only competing against the two mainstream parties. By 1996, the NP had already established itself as a real player in local elections in 1993 and 1994. The NP’s breakthrough in the December  1995 Legislative Yuan elections cemented its position as the third party in the party system. Although the KMT had been losing support and votes since the early 1990s, it still remained Taiwan’s dominant party, and Lee Teng-hui’s presidential campaign did give the KMT a major boost. The other major party, the DPP, had gradually been gaining party identification since the early 1990s and was undoubtedly much stronger than five years earlier. But there was an opportunity for the GPT to win over disaffected DPP supporters, as the

The GPT’s first election in 1996  117 DPP was seriously divided over its presidential campaign, with many not strongly backing the official candidate, Peng Ming-min (彭明敏). When it came to the strategies of the mainstream parties on the GPT’s core issue areas, the picture was mixed. The KMT had a development first and pro-nuclear position. The DPP did have an anti-nuclear stance and gave more lip service to environmental issues, but as I discussed in Chapter 3, it had been losing the trust of environmentalists. However, the fact that the DPP-run Taipei City government was holding the referendum on the Fourth Nuclear Power Station on the same day as the National Assembly election revealed that the alliance between the DPP and environmentalists had not entirely broken down. The DPP was still claiming ownership of the anti-nuclear issue. To use Meguid’s terminology, the DPP still was using an accommodative strategy on the environment, while the KMT’s was adversarial (2008). Overall, the DPP did see the GPT initially as a threat in 1996. As mentioned earlier, the DPP made its last minute appeal to voters considering the GPT to ‘concentrate your votes on the DPP.’18 Moreover, after the election one of the key DPP campaign team members, the political scientist You Ying-lung (游盈隆), argued that one factor in the party’s setback was the divisions within the traditional opposition camp, citing the GPT’s emergence as a case.19 Nevertheless, the GPT did benefit from the fact that it was the only alternative to the three mainstream parties in 1996. This would not be the case two years later.

GPT agency in explaining the results When I asked Kao Cheng-yan how the party could perform so well just weeks after being established, he offered a simple response, saying, ‘it was the power of the earlier environmental movement.’20 For Kao and Chang Chi-huang, the environmental protests, as well as the anti-nuclear referendum and recall campaigns of the previous few years, meant that the party’s real start pointing was much earlier. As Chang, one of the main organisers of the GPT founding period, explained, ‘by 1993–1994 the momentum of social movements had reached a peak and by 1995– 1996 we were starting to have a real effect.’21 The GPT built on this momentum, as founder Kao Cheng-yan noted: ‘when the party was established the core members had already been in the environmental movement in 1994, some were intellectuals and there were also some volunteers from street protests.’22 Kao believed that one of the cornerstones of the 1996 campaign was the Taipei City referendum on the Fourth Nuclear Power Station. This helped to bring public attention to environmental issues in a campaign that otherwise had been dominated by debates over cross-Strait tensions and national identity. In the previous chapter, I described the GPT’s 1996 line up of candidates as a masterpiece in nomination. This clearly did have an effect on the GPT votes that year as well as in attracting campaign volunteers. One such campaigner, Calvin Wen, describes that at the time I did not know whether they would do well in the election or not. But I felt they were very different from other politicians. Their characteristics

118  The first decade were completely different from others. That is what really attracted me at the time. I thought this is what our politicians should be like.23 Similarly, Secretary General Hung Yu-cheng noted how the GPT’s line-up looked different from the DPP’s, as ‘some were from the cultural sector, environmental protection, social welfare, labour movement. So they were different from the DPP’s Bian Faction or New Tide Faction.’24 The diversity of the GPT’s appeal also included the wide range of social movements that were supporting it that year, and this was something that both the press and academic studies pointed out. Ho and Huang, for instance, noted the nomination included ‘activists involved in environmental, community and cultural issues, reflecting the diversity of contemporary ecological politics’ (2017, 356). One such example of the breadth of the GPT’s linkages with diverse social movements was its ‘one person one letter to save Taiwan’ campaign, which encouraged people to write letters to world leaders about the danger Taiwan was facing during the cross-Strait crisis.25 For this appeal, the GPT was joined by disabled rights, environmental, feminist and conservation groups. In fact, Ho also notes that at least initially, many social movements had high expectations and were willing to support the GPT (2006, 194). One of the biggest challenges facing small parties and especially new parties is to get the media attention they need to raise public awareness of their existence. As Meguid suggests, the ideal scenario is for the mainstream parties to take adversarial stances towards the small parties and their core issues. As discussed earlier, in 1996 Kao was very skilled at getting media attention and more importantly inciting the main parties to attack the GPT. Often this would involve Kao leading protests against the campaign headquarters or events of both the KMT and the NP. The GPT’s protests against the KMT’s presidential candidate, Lee Teng-hui, generated significant media coverage and at times faced violent responses from the police or opposition supporters. For instance, there was much media coverage of a joint DPP/GPT attempt to gate-crash one of Lee’s campaign events in Taoyuan, and in this case eight of the protestors and three police were injured.26 In fact, Kao’s confrontational campaigning approach does have some similarities to the internet attack methods that became associated with the GPT’s Wang Hau-yu in recent years. When I  asked Secretary General Hung Yu-cheng for his explanation for the GPT’s fine performance in 1996, his answer was different from Kao and Chang’s. He particularly credited Kao’s trip to catch missiles.27 Interestingly, this had not been mentioned in my earlier interviews, but the review of the media coverage showed that it was one of the most effective GPT stories in the campaign. With the 1996 campaign so dominated by the cross-Strait crisis, this put an environmental party at a disadvantage in getting its issues on the agenda. However, Kao’s catching the missiles stunt allowed the GPT to join the debate on cross-Strait relations and gain both domestic and international media attention. Moreover, Kao was able to use this appeal to challenge all three of the GPT’s rival parties, and even to question Lee Teng-hui and the DPP’s courage and love for Taiwan.

The GPT’s first election in 1996  119 Lastly, a number of my interviewees highlighted what they saw as effective and innovative campaign methods as important in the GPT’s 1996 campaign. Moreover, many of these methods would become the mainstay of most subsequent GPT campaigns. For instance, a number of activists highlighted the use of campaigning on bikes instead of the unpopular loudspeaker campaign vans. Campaign rallies had gained a rather notorious reputation in the 1990s. Often they were associated with free food, bored audiences being mobilised by different patron client networks to make up the numbers and performances that often featured scantily dressed singers and dancers. The distinctive trait of early GPT events was that they often featured alternative cultural performances. For instance, at Huang Mei-ying’s (黃美英) campaign headquarters launch, it was reported she included Indigenous and local folk music performances.28 Similarly, Huang’s campaign events incorporated performances and music by the GPT’s Lynx Street Performance Group (綠黨山貓街頭演藝團).29 In other words, the GPT was able to attract voters with its alternative type of candidate as well as its distinctive style of political communication.

Explaining variation in the GPT’s 1996 results As I  discussed in Chapter  4, there was much variation in the electoral performance of GPT candidates. If we exclude Kao Meng-ting, then we can divide the remaining candidates into those that received 3,000–5,000 votes and those getting between 8,000 and 13,000. Naturally, the variation in how hard some candidates were campaigning was one factor. The two candidates whose election gazettes just stated, ‘want native language, don’t want votes,’ Chen Feng-hui (陳豐惠) and Liao Jui-ming (廖瑞銘), do not appear to have campaigned especially hard. They received only limited press attention and were in the lower GPT vote getter category. To an extent, voters had taken their advice too literally. One way we can see the effect of intensive campaigning is by comparing the three GPT candidates in Taipei City. Ho Ying-yi and Huang Mei-ying were both in the higher vote category, while Liao Cheng-kuo received just 4,753 votes. A review of press reports shows that Ho and Huang were the most visible of all GPT district candidates, with double the number of news reports mentioning Liao. After the election, Ho’s campaign did receive some attention; as a report explained, despite not having campaign flags or campaigning on the streets, she still gained well over 10,000 votes. Ho, an independent record company executive, had been handicapped as a result of contracting polio as a child and so was not able to campaign in the streets in the same way as most candidates. Instead, the United Daily News report argued that ‘Ho Ying-yi’s votes came from her speaking.’30 The report highlighted how well she handled political call-in shows on the radio and how she hosted a major February 28 Incident memorial event for Taipei City Government. Ho had also joined Kao’s intercept the missiles trip, and the report noted how though Ho had been badly seasick on the boat, as soon as she got off she professionally handled questions from the media.31

120  The first decade Calvin Wen and Peng Yen-wen had both helped out on some of the Taipei campaigns, especially Ho and Lin Yen-ling’s (Taipei County). They both believed that the appearance of GPT candidates helped. Wen recalled that some of them did well and others not so well. I am not sure why there was this difference in the outcome. We did discuss this afterwards. We joked that female candidates were more attractive to voters, while the male candidates did not have the right strategies.32 Peng followed up, saying, ‘also Lin Tzu-ling looks very pretty in the posters and that attracted many people.’33 Wen called this ‘Pig brother votes’ (豬哥票).34 The case of Huang Mei-ying in Taipei City District 2 is illustrative of another of the more successful GPT campaigns. Having been involved in environmental and Indigenous movements, Huang was supportive of the GPT project but did not plan to actually stand for election. She recalled how, that night, it was very dramatic. They lacked a candidate for District 2 and it was the night before the candidate registration deadline. Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋) from the League of Welfare Organizations for the Disabled and a cadre from the TEPU came to see me in Nankang. Because I lived in an old apartment building without a lift, Wang Jung-chang could not come upstairs, so I had to come downstairs. They took me away and that evening I had no choice but to agree to be a candidate and signed the political agent agreement.35 Clearly, Huang had disadvantages compared to mainstream party candidates in terms of resources, and while most candidates start preparing a year in advance, she only had six weeks to campaign. Her district was divided into four administrative districts, and Huang admitted she just had time to campaign in one of them (Nankang).36 Undoubtedly, Huang’s active campaigning and innovative cultural communication did help her win extra votes. But, in addition, Huang believed three more organisational factors boosted her campaign. Firstly, having lived in Nankang and worked at Academic Sinica for over a decade, she had local support networks. Additionally, she had been involved in helping resolve a local environmental dispute over a landfill site. Lastly, she believed that as a result of helping the DPP mayoral campaign in 1994, she also had some grassroots DPP supporters backing her.37 We can only speculate how the outcome might have been different if Huang and others had had a just a few more months to campaign. One of Ho Ming-sho’s explanations for the GPT’s 1990s failure was because it never nominated in the district where the Fourth Nuclear Power Station is situated, in Kongliao, leaving the district to the DPP (2003, 704–5). Since the GPT had made opposition to the power plant so central to its appeals, this does seem odd. Actually, in 1996 the GPT did nominate Wang Jung-chang in Taipei County District 7 (which includes Kongliao) against a DPP candidate. But where Ho is

The GPT’s first election in 1996  121 right is that the voters in Kongliao did not reward the GPT for its anti-nuclear advocacy; instead, it appears they gave the credit to the DPP. The DPP candidate was the top vote winner in the district; Wang received the lowest vote share of all GPT candidates, and his vote share in Kongliao was tiny.

Kao Meng-ting’s election Although Kao Meng-ting was elected as the lowest placed successful candidate in Yunlin County District 1, he managed to beat two mainstream politicians. This distinguished him from even the other most competitive GPT candidates, who were unable to outpoll any mainstream party candidates. In 1996, the GPT found it harder to find its ideal candidates outside of the greater Taipei region. At the time, the GPT needed to have at least ten candidates to have a party list, and since the gap between the party’s establishment and nomination deadline was very short, the process of reviewing candidates must have been brief. Kao Cheng-yan recalls that one of his close GPT associates had warned him that ‘Kao Meng-ting’s not a good person. She said he’s cooperating with Chang Jung-wei.’38 At the time, Chang was a rising KMT-linked local factional politician with a reputation for political corruption, and even today his family remains very powerful in Yunlin County. However, as discussed in the last chapter, Kao Meng-ting had a very impressive CV. He was a university professor with extensive local government planning experience. According to Chang Chi-huang, who had been one of those seeking out potential GPT candidates, ‘he was local, he was a very active political participant. Yes, he also very much wanted to run in the elections and very early on he cooperated with local politicians because of his professional background.’39 Ho Ming-sho described the GPT’s successful candidate as only ‘distantly related to the core GPT’ (Ho 2003, 704) and argued that the reason he was elected was due to his own political strength, not the GPT label (Ho 2006, 194). Overall, the evidence suggests that while Kao Meng-ting did have the local political strength to be competitive, we should not entirely discount the GPT element of his campaign. He did include the GPT’s common platform and environmental appeals in his gazette and campaign communication. In fact, at a press conference days before the election, GPT Spokesperson Ho Ying-yi described Kao Meng-ting as someone with a long social movement track record.40 A final factor in his success was the way the DPP mishandled nomination in this district. Not only did the DPP over-nominate, it also failed to prevent one of its party members standing as a rebel. In Table 4.5, we can see that the combined vote of the two DPP-nominated candidates came to 26,871, compared to Kao’s 20,270. Additionally, the sixth placed candidate, Lin Chen-tsai (林振財), with 12,373 votes, was a former DPP county councillor. So it is quite possible Kao would not have won if the DPP had been less ambitious and just nominated a single candidate or if the DPP had been able to prevent Lin standing unendorsed and splitting the DPP vote even further.

122  The first decade

Conclusions This review of the GPT’s 1996 campaign has shown how the party tried initially to brand itself to voters. Unsurprisingly, environmental concerns, especially opposition to nuclear power, were central to its campaign. However, it also reflected its roots in a wide range of social movements by stressing a diverse set of social issue appeals. It was able to appeal to voters with its set of alternative candidates and innovative campaigning methods. Additionally, the GPT was also able to challenge mainstream parties over ownership of the most salient issue of national identity and relations with China. In other words, the GPT had also branded itself as a Taiwanese nationalist party. The GPT’s initial campaign of 1996 gives us a sense of how to understand the party’s performance. I have shown how the state of the party system and the mainstream parties’ strategies had an effect on the GPT’s campaign. However, the GPT did have a say in its own fate by running a strong campaign, and the quality of the individual GPT candidates’ campaigns did affect how competitive they were. Therefore, its impressive start was the result of its ability to strike a balance between vote maximising and its core ideology and social movement roots. Even at the level of an individual GPT candidate, such as Kao Meng-ting, we can see how we need to consider both party system and party agency factors in explaining electoral fortunes. In the next chapter, we will see how and whether the party was able to build on its promising start in the next round of elections in 1998.

Notes 1 GPT, ‘History of Green Party Taiwan,’ http://gptaiwan.yam.org.tw/english_version/ history.html. 2 UDN Evening News, 17 March 1996, 14. 3 UDN Evening News, 18 March 1996, 9. 4 UDN Evening News, 22 March 1996, 14. 5 UDN Evening News, 26 January 1996, 4. 6 UDN Evening News, 23 March 1996, 6. 7 Ibid., 4. 8 Hung Yu-cheng, 14 November 2019. 9 UDN Evening News, 9 March 1996, 5. 10 UDN Evening News, 11 March 1996, 14. 11 Hung Yu-cheng, 14 November 2019. 12 UDN Evening News, 17 March 1996, 5. 13 China Times, 30 June 1997, https://catalog.digitalarchives.tw/item/00/3a/bc/35.html. 14 Hung Yu-cheng, 14 November 2019. 15 UDN Evening News, 26 February 1996, 6. 16 UDN Evening News, 24 March 1996, 9. 17 In its first national election in 1995, the NP had won 21 seats or 12.8 percent of the seats in the Legislative Yuan. 18 UDN Evening News, 23 March 1996, 6. 19 UDN Evening News, 30 March 1996, 4. 20 Kao Cheng-yan, 20 December 2012. 21 Chang Chi-huang, 20 December 2012. 22 Kao Cheng-yan, 20 December 2012.

The GPT’s first election in 1996  123 23 Calvin Wen, 2 January 2014. 24 Hung Yu-cheng, 14 November 2019. The Bian Faction refers to those associated with the then-DPP Taipei Mayor Chen Shui-bian. 25 UDN Evening News, 10 March 1996, 5. 26 UDN Evening News, 18 March 1996, 5. 27 Hung Yu-cheng, 14 November 2019. 28 UDN Evening News, 4 March 1996, 14. 29 UDN Evening News, 13 March 1996, 14. 30 UDN Evening News, 14 April 1996, 6. 31 Ibid. 32 Calvin Wen, 2 January 2014. 33 Peng Yen-wen, 2 January 2014. 34 Calvin Wen, 2 January 2014. Here Wen is referring to Lin Yen-ling, who later changed her name to Lin Tzu-ling. 35 Huang Mei-ying, Facebook message, 5 August 2020. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. 38 Kao Cheng-yan, 26 December 2014. 39 Chang Chi-huang, 20 December 2012. 40 UDN Evening News, 22 March 1996, 6.

References Ho, Ming-sho. 2003. ‘The Politics of Anti-Nuclear Protest in Taiwan: A  Case of PartyDependent Movement.’ Modern Asian Studies, 37(3): 683–708. Ho, Ming-sho. 2006. Green Democracy: A Study on Taiwan’s Environmental Movement. Taipei: Socio Publishing. Ho, Ming-sho and Chun-hao Huang. 2017. ‘Movement Parties in Taiwan, 1987–2016.’ Asian Survey, 57(2): 343–367. Meguid, Bonnie. 2008. Party Competition between Unequals: Strategies and Electoral Fortunes in Western Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tang, Shui-Yan and Ching-Ping Tang. 1999. ‘Democratization and the Environment: Entrepreneurial Politics and Interest Representation in Taiwan.’ The China Quarterly, 158: 66–82.

7 Almost breaking through in 1998 Is it OK to frequent sexual nightclubs?

For lovers of elections, Taiwan was a paradise in the 1990s. Not only were there numerous elections, they were also spread out on the calendar. As someone living in Taiwan for most of the decade, it seemed like there were major elections every year, and sometimes there were even two. In fact, the only year without a major election was 1999, but that year Taiwan was preparing for its presidential election to be held in March 2000. This represented both opportunities and challenges for new and small parties such as the GPT. In the period covered in this chapter, there were elections for local county executives in November 1997; elections for county and city councils in January 1998; and special municipality and national parliamentary elections in December 1998. There could have been even more, but as a result of constitutional reforms, the provincial level and National Assembly elections were cancelled. The challenge for the GPT was which contests and locations to concentrate its limited resources on. This chapter will follow a similar format to the previous one. In other words, I will first discuss the way the GPT campaigned in 1998 and then focus on how best to understand its electoral performances.

The second elections: national and local campaigns Although the GPT contested county council elections in January 1998 as well as national parliamentary and Taipei city council elections in December, I will focus my campaign reviews on the two that attracted the most media attention. These were Kao Cheng-yan’s Legislative Yuan campaign and Peng Yen-wen in Taipei City Council District 6. Kao had a wide range of progressive policy proposals on his gazette listing. He pledged to end the nuclear power nightmare, donate half his legislator salary for parliamentary supervision work, create a welfare state and referendum legislation, promote grassroots democracy, call for electronic media neutrality, oppose casinos and oppose liberalising the sale of agricultural land. At the election policy forum, Kao argued there would not be progressive parliamentary reform without social movement representation. He also argued that while the KMT just protects the interests of special interest groups, the DPP is willing to sacrifice environmental protection for the sake of winning elections.1 However, the key feature

Almost breaking through in 1998  125 of Kao’s campaigning in 1998 was protesting. This was visible in the election gazette, where his anti-nuclear headband distinguished him from all the other candidates. Kao, for instance, made a number of protests outside the campaign headquarters of KMT Taipei mayoral candidate Ma Ying-jeou, demanding Ma sign the anti-Fourth Nuclear Power Station petition.2 In the words of Kao himself, ‘at that time I was going there [Ma’s HQ] to make trouble.’3 However, he believed that this could help raise media visibility of Peng’s city council campaign in the same district. Another way to get a sense of the GPT’s 1998 campaign communication is through its advertising. On the eve of the election, it placed three ads in the alternative culture magazine POTS (破週報).4 Although one ad featured Kao and the four city council candidates with the English slogan ‘Vote for Green Party Taiwan,’ it appeared that the ads were mainly aimed at getting Kao elected. The first full-page ad called on voters to save a seat for the environmental protection and anti-nuclear legislator. Two of the ads highlighted that surveys showed Kao on the margins of being elected, as he was ranked tenth or eleventh in this ten-seat district. Finally, it was apparent that he was especially targeting potential DPP voters, as Kao questioned the quality of two of the DPP’s candidates in his district and the DPP’s appeal to get all four of its candidates elected. Although they were both standing in Taipei, Peng’s campaign was quite different from those of both Kao and the other GPT city council candidates. Peng’s campaign manager, Calvin Wen, recalled how they were often quite critical of Kao’s campaign style, Why do this kind of performance? Like a clown. This might work with some issues, but this might scare people away from environmental issues. We had many different opinions from him. He respected us and he had many ideas for us. But we often said no, this is a bad idea. Our campaign was very independent.5 There was for instance, greater focus on gender-related issues in Peng’s campaign, calling for initiatives that would bring a gendered perspective into city governance. Another innovation was her focus on animal welfare. In her gazette listing, Peng called for tougher punishments for people that had abused or abandoned pets, as well as calling for communities and schools to adopt stray animals. She even issued a leaflet on the need for stray animals to have a representative in the city council. Where Peng did address environmental issues, it often was through the lens of people’s daily life, such as rubbish recycling, reusable bags, hoping children can breathe clean air or the environmental benefits of cycling. Wen felt their strategy was also innovative: ‘the strategy we used was riding bicycles, and promoting the concept of riding bicycles, as at the time everyone was driving cars and riding motorbikes, placing flags around. Our strategy was to have a flag on the bikes.’6 One further innovation was to include Peng’s face on the campaign flags, and he noted how other candidates quickly followed suit.

126  The first decade Although it has become very fashionable to use bicycle campaigning, Wen still saw the GPT approach as different: there is a difference in the way the GPT rides bikes in campaigns. We would never put the bike on a vehicle to take to a place and then ride it. We want to promote bicycles as a way of transport, so we ride a bike. It’s not a tool for elections. This is very different. We won’t write a set of policy proposals to please voters. I’ll promote policies that will improve our living environment. These are important issues. Many candidates and their campaigners are just riding bikes temporarily. So you can tell from the way they ride, they normally do not ride bikes.7 It was clear that Peng’s campaign was highly innovative, but it also incorporated traditional communication elements. Wen explained how they learned much from other, more traditional candidates, such as handshaking. He recalled, we talked about why do we need to shake hands? Later we understood how important shaking hands is. We understood its importance for relationships with people. So we understood that having these kinds of skills is more important than having potential.8 Although the internet was starting to become popular by this stage, according to Wen it was not yet an important campaign tool, so the traditional media and traditional campaigning methods still mattered. Wen thus noted that they relied on getting press coverage, giving out leaflets and handshaking. Finally, though Wen was critical of some of Kao’s confrontational campaign methods, the turning point of Peng’s campaign came out of their adoption of an alternative variation of his headquarter protests. I will discuss this later in the chapter.

Continuity and change in the GPT’s campaign appeals through to 1998 Comparing the GPT’s electoral campaign themes and methods in 1998 with those of 1996 shows a high degree of continuity. There was much overlap in the core appeals, such as opposition to nuclear energy, the need for social movement representation and real parliamentary supervision. Similarly, Kao continued his confrontational style of campaigning. This degree of continuity can partly be explained by the fact that none of the key drivers of party change were present. The party leadership and inner-party factional balance of power had not changed, and the party had not yet suffered a serious electoral setback. Kao remained the dominant figure in the party’s operation, and though the party had only won a single seat in the 1996 election, it was seen as a successful first campaign, as most candidates had retained their election deposits. Where campaigns did see innovation in 1998, this was closely connected to the rising role of younger activists who had played a support role in 1996 but by 1998 were standing for election

Almost breaking through in 1998  127 or directing campaigns. The almost successful campaign in 1998 in Taipei City Council District 6 is one such example. They are the group I termed the GPT’s second generation in Chapter 5.

Understanding the GPT’s performance in 1998 In Chapter  4, I  suggested that the GPT’s performance in 1998 raised two puzzles. Firstly, why did the vast majority of GPT candidates go from being semicompetitive in 1996 to being non-competitive in 1998? Secondly, why was Peng’s campaign in Taipei City District 6 so much better than all the others? Competing party strategies in 1998 Although the 1998 elections were only two years after the GPT’s initial 1996 contest, there were some important changes in the party system and in the approaches of their rival parties. These would impact the party’s electoral fortunes in 1998. By then, the KMT was deeply divided over who would succeed Lee Teng-hui in the next presidential election, and its revival in parliamentary seats in 1998 was largely due to the decline of the NP. However, the NP remained strong in its Taipei stronghold, which of course was where the GPT concentrated its nomination that year. For instance, in the Taipei City Council elections, the NP still managed to win nine seats, and in Peng’s District 6, all four NP candidates were elected. Although there were also divisions in the DPP camp in 1998, they were not as severe as those in the KMT, and the party was more united than two years earlier. However, when it came to issue approaches, the DPP’s changing policies created opportunities for the GPT to exploit. The DPP’s total compromise, described in the GPT’s founding statement, was really materialising. Linda Arrigo recalled how later, when Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良) became chairman for the second time (July  18, 1996  – July  18, 1998 on Wikipedia), all the ‘social movement’ departments of the DPP (women, labor, indigenous) were changed to ‘development’ depts., i.e. business development.9 A number of cases reveal the deepening rift between social movements and the DPP. In late 1997, a dispute emerged between the DPP’s Taichung County magistrate and the DPP’s chairman over a proposed Bayer chemical plant (Rigger 2001, 109–12). While the central and provincial governments supported the project, environmental groups were strongly opposed. The county magistrate insisted on a referendum on the plant before he would issue construction permits. The DPP chair, Hsu Hsin-liang, wanted to remove the party’s anti-business reputation and so tried to intervene in support of the project rather than the party’s traditional environmental movement allies. In the end, Bayer decided to cancel the investment and instead relocated it to the US. Another controversial case concerned DPP Taipei City mayor Chen Shui-bian’s policy to close the city’s licensed

128  The first decade brothels in 1997 (Weng and Fell 2006). Chen’s decision had been based on the advice of senior feminist leaders on the Taipei Commission for Women’s Rights, but many younger feminist activists came out in support of the human rights of the licensed prostitutes. With the KMT and NP in Taipei City Council forcing Chen to postpone the ban, the issue became further politicised. Calvin Wen recalls how ‘we were very angry with the way he [Chen] handled this.’10 A further damaging case for the DPP–social movement relationship concerned the way Chen handled the eviction of the Kang-Lo neighbourhood to create Taipei Parks No. 14–15. Wen recalled how some social movement activists were so angry at this that they switched to joining 1998 mayoral campaign team for KMT Ma Ying-jeou.11 In short, the Bayer, Taipei licensed brothels and Taipei park cases served to deepen the rift between the DPP and civil society. It appeared as if the DPP was now taking an adversarial approach on social movement issues. Ho argues that the GPT failed to take advantage of this opportunity, as it was unable to break the environmental movement’s dependence on the DPP (2003, 706). He notes how key figureheads in the anti-nuclear movement, such as Edgar Lin (林俊義), remained in the DPP. Similarly, Kao commented on another key anti-nuclear figure, Chang Kuo-lung, who ‘strongly supported the GPT. But later he chose the DPP.’12 Kao had tried to persuade such figures to join the GPT but said it was very difficult and the reason they did not openly join was ‘politics.’ One of the political figures that Ho interviewed in early 1999 illustrates this problem of unbroken dependency. In this case, the interviewee had previously been a DPP local branch director, but in 1998 he campaigned for the GPT. He explained to Ho that ‘it’s easier for environmentalists to campaign using the DPP label. The DPP has fixed supporters and sometimes they can even allocate you votes’ (Ho 2006, 195). Another area where the DPP had been adjusting its position concerned national identity and relations with China. Under the chairmanship of Hsu Hsin-liang, the DPP was seen as promoting closer economic ties with China and shifting away from its advocacy of Taiwan independence seen in 1996. This could have been another golden opportunity for the GPT, as we saw in Chapter 6 that a number of GPT politicians had taken either pro-independence or anti-PRC stances in its early years. Nevertheless, this was another area where the GPT was not able to benefit, as instead two new pro-independence parties entered the political marketplace after 1996. These were the Taiwan Independence Party (TIP) and New Nation Alliance (NNA). They both relied primarily on former DPP politicians and members defecting. These parties nominated extensively in 1998, with the TIP nominating 20 and the NNA 12 legislative candidates and both joining local council races. They gained a combined vote of over 3 percent in the legislative election and won two seats. These two parties damaged the DPP but also the GPT. We can see the negative impact of these new competitors in Taipei City Legislative Yuan District 2, where Kao Cheng-yan was standing for the GPT. While in 1996 the GPT had been the only other party challenging the big three mainstream parties, in 1998 there were these two new parties and a number of well-known independents standing and taking away potential protest votes that could have

Almost breaking through in 1998  129 gone to the GPT. Moreover, in Kao’s district, the NNA candidate, Hsiao Yu-chen (蕭裕珍), and former CSDP leader Chu Kao-cheng (朱高正) both outpolled him. While Kao was not a competitive candidate in that legislative district, some of the GPT’s city council candidates had the potential to be competitive. However, in all four city council districts, the GPT candidates faced competition from one or even both new parties. We can see the effect of this division in Taipei City Council District 3, where GPT founding member Chang Chi-huang was standing. The combined vote for Chang, plus the TIP and NNA candidates, came to 13,732, and the lowest winning candidate won with 11,479. But by standing separately, none could be counted as competitive. In this respect, Peng in District 6 was fortunate that she only faced the competition of a single TIP candidate. This leads me to another important and worrying development for the GPT. These new parties not only split the social movement vote but also poached GPT members. As mentioned earlier, none of its 1996 district candidates stood for the GPT in 1998, but what made matters worse was that three of them stood for these new rival parties. Its successful candidate, Kao Meng-ting, stood as an independent in Yunlin, while Lin Chang-mao (林長茂) and Kao Chin-lang both stood for the newly formed TIP.13 While Kao Chin-lang’s Taiwanese nationalist profile seems to make his switch to the TIP understandable, Lin’s defection was especially damaging as he had been a founding GPT Central Executive Committee member and was an important environmental movement figure. GPT agency in its electoral fortunes in 1998 Although the changing party system contributed to the GPT’s relatively poor electoral performance in 1998, its own electoral strategies were equally if not more important in explaining the results. One of the biggest challenges for small parties in Taiwan is of course fundraising. In the early period, the GPT was very reliant on a small number of large donors. Arrigo noted how ‘the early elections of Green Party were financed largely out of the pocket of Gao Guai [Kao Cheng-yan].’14 She also noted that in one of the early elections, NT$3  million came from one factory owner. We can see how important that 3 million was when we consider that in an interview Kao claimed that the campaign fund he had raised for the December 1998 elections was NT$4 million.15 Here also lies a critical failure of the GPT at this time, namely its limited ability to raise campaign funds. The campaign fund for 1996 had been about 4 million, and two years later the party’s fundraising was stuck at the same level. The new kids on the block, the TIP and NNA, had nominated much more extensively than the GPT and had even been able to buy half page national newspaper ads.16 This reveals that there were funds available for small parties but that the GPT had failed to develop a more institutionalised professional fundraising system since 1996 to make the party more competitive. Where funding is limited, a key question is to examine how well those funds are used. When I discussed the party’s performance in the aftermath of 1996 with Kao, he felt that one of the important mistakes was wasting too much on the

130  The first decade January 1998 county council elections. He felt if he could go back in time, they instead should have entered the race for the Xizhi township mayor in mid-1996. He recalled how in 1996 not long after the GPT was established, there was a by-election for Xizhi township mayor. At that time a friend who cared about the GPT and who had donated a lot of money when the party was established, suggested we nominate someone in that district. But we didn’t.17 Some disagreed on this point, such as founding member Lin Cheng-hsiu (林正修), who said, ‘we have no chance in a one on one, one seat, winner takes all.’18 Kao responded that ‘I am not saying we would have won but it would have helped to raise the GPT’s popularity.’19 One key area of continuity in the GPT’s 1998 appeals was its environmental advocacy. However, Ho and Huang believe that one reason such appeals may have been less effective was that the climax of anti-nuclear movement had been in the mid-1990s and that by the late 1990s ‘the GPT was weakened by the decline of anti-nuclear mobilization’ (2017, 356). As mentioned earlier, the new party system, especially competition from the two new parties, undermined the prospects of the GPT’s 1998 candidates. This raises the question of whether this kind of direct competition between these parties with quite similar positions could have been avoided. Could they have run in an alliance that avoided nominating in the same districts? In my interviews with Kao, it was suggested that this division could have been avoided if negotiations had been successful with the NNA. Kao explained that he had proposed that the GPT would have six Taipei City Council candidates, but he would not stand for legislature, leaving those districts to the NNA. However, although Kao was on good terms with NNA leader Chen Yong-hsing (陳永興), negotiations broke down due to objections from other NNA figures. These protracted negotiations with the NNA also led Kao to take too long to settle on whether he would stand in Taipei City Legislative District 1 (North) or 2 (South). He believed he could have got many more votes if he had stood in the North district, but in the end he chose the South district, as the NNA figure he blamed for the breakdown of negotiations was standing there. There were similar problems of communication with the TIP. In this case, Kao had proposed to long-term social movement collaborator Hsu Chu-feng (許主峰) that he stand for the GPT in either of the Taipei City legislative districts and offered him campaign funding, but Hsu told him he did not want to stand. However, Hsu later changed his mind and stood for the TIP in Taipei City District 1. Kao explained that the TIP did not provide any funding; Hsu ended up with a pile of debts and only 3,000 votes. Sixteen years later, Kao was still aggrieved by this and joked ‘Hsu Chu-feng should have his bottom spanked.’20 A further case of divided pro-independence votes was the independent candidacy of Bai Hsuan (白瑄) in Kao’s Taipei District 2. Kao recalled how ‘it was the Voice of Taiwan. Hsu Rong-chi (許榮祺) was always supporting Bai Hsuan.’21 In fact, if we

Almost breaking through in 1998  131 combine the GPT, NNA, TIP and Bai Hsuan’s votes in Taipei City District 2, they are only just short of the lowest successful candidate. Given that the lowest successful candidate was the NP’s Lai Shih-pao (賴士葆), one of the most detested figures in progressive civil society, this was a wasted opportunity and shows the price of non-cooperation. A final topic that needs to be addressed in understanding the impact of the GPT in this initial period is the party’s degree of unity. A key feature of the period after 2008 was party infighting. However, the impression of this period in the 1990s was that even though there were occasional differences of opinion between Kao’s first generation and Chang or Wen’s second generation, there was a strong team spirit. Chang Chi-huang explained how though they often had differences they could debate issues and come out with a common GPT position.22 She felt this meant the GPT of the 1990s was quite distinct from the later periods.

What was special about Peng’s campaign? The key puzzle of 1998 was why Peng Yen-wen’s campaign was so much better than the other GPT candidates. The GPT had four candidates standing for Taipei City Council in 1998. Peng explained that ‘each candidate had one million dollars of campaign funds (from the GPT) to find a team. Then we could have a planned campaign for three or more months.’23 The comparison between Peng Yen-wen (District 6), Chen Kuang-yu (陳光宇) (District 5) and Chang Chi-huang (District 3) is especially interesting. All three were young female candidates, with rich social movement experience, and GPT Central Executive Committee members. Chang had worked the longest with Kao, had the most GPT organisational experience and had been one of those that first proposed the GPT idea to Kao. At 30, Chen was the oldest of the three, had already received her master’s degree in the US and had stood for election in January for Taipei County Council. However, Peng was by far the best performing out of all the GPT’s 1998 candidates and the closest to winning election. According to Kao, a key factor in Peng’s high vote share was that his protests outside the KMT mayoral headquarters helped raise Peng’s media visibility.24 He recalled how on one occasion he took Franz Floss, the European Greens Secretary General, to the protest site. Again, things got violent, and while Floss narrowly escaped injury, Kao’s sister-in-law was badly beaten up and hospitalised for a number of days. Interestingly, Peng did not appear to know about this incident when Kao mentioned it in our interview, and Peng was clearly not convinced this was especially important for her campaign. Peng’s campaign was very independent from Kao’s but also quite different from the other GPT candidates. Wen and Peng felt a number of things contributed to their relative success. Firstly, they gave credit to their core team. Wen recalls that apart from putting together a team of 5–6 who we could communicate well with, we were young and had different ways of thinking from ordinary people.

132  The first decade In the early stage, we kept discussing, what kind of strategy can allow people to know about her?25 On top of this, they managed to recruit a group of university student volunteers to help on the campaign, and Wen recalled how they tried to involve them in the campaign planning where possible. Thus, Peng was able to build up a much larger campaign team than the other GPT council candidates. Secondly, they gave credit to their campaigning methods and propaganda material. Here there was a mix of new and old. Peng would campaign with her team on bikes, as well as simply talking to people and shaking hands. They were also proud of their innovative leaflets and adding Peng’s face to the campaign flags. Despite campaigning hard for a couple of months, Wen remembers a sense they had run into a bottleneck. He stated, at one point we were very worried as we did not seem to be having any response. We were doing many things but voters did not seem to notice. They would say, ‘who are you? I  don’t know you.’  .  .  . We were doing a lot of propaganda so people should be aware of her. But it looked like the message was not getting through, people did not know about her.26 Wen believed a critical moment in Peng’s campaign came with the eruption of the scandal about politicians frequenting sexual night clubs (喝花酒, literally drinking flowers and wine). Hwang Shu-ling calls this practice parts of ‘Taiwan’s flower drinking culture,’ defining it as ‘sex-service establishments frequented by groups of men’ (Hwang 2003, 74). This enabled the Peng camp to attack both the DPP and the KMT and in the process get both print and television coverage. Initially, Peng criticised the DPP’s Ma Yung-cheng (馬永成) for proudly admitting to going to sexual nightclubs for business entertainment. She noted that though he is from the younger generation of politicians, he had no desire to change the patriarchal culture of political circles.27 Though this did generate some media attention, it then really exploded when the KMT mayoral candidate’s spokesman said public servants cannot go to sexual nightclubs but that it is fine for elected politicians. This was the opportunity they had been waiting for. Wen explained what they did next, saying, so we got a bottle of wine and bought a bunch of flowers. So we went to Ma Ying-jeou’s campaign headquarters to give them wine and flowers. We planned on having a performance saying you can drink wine and look at flowers, but you cannot go to sexual nightclubs, it does not matter whether you are an official or a city councillor.28 On a number of occasions, Kao’s KMT campaign headquarter protests ended in violence, but part of the reason for the positive coverage was that Peng’s team was

Almost breaking through in 1998  133 able to defuse the tensions. This is how Wen recalls the moment when they arrived at the KMT headquarters: it was the first time we’d done this kind of thing, we thought maybe there will be fighting. We would not try to provoke them. We said to them rationally that we are just here to tell you about this thing. But they had many supporters and they were very aggressive. They swore at us. But we stayed calm and said, ‘don’t be like this.’ Then the media, the SNG cars arrived and caught the scene. Beforehand we’d agreed what we would say to the media if we had the chance. Here, I think she [Peng] did very well. In this small clash, then the media interviewed her. She spoke very well about this issue. For the next 24 hours this was reported in the media. We had succeeded. Because we had no money to run a media or advertising campaign. But this activity was as effective as an expensive media campaign. This was an important factor in why her votes were higher than the others.29 They were then able to follow up that critical television coverage with a press conference, supported by a variety of feminist groups. This was an example of a GPT campaign that tried to keep a balance, so it was clear they were supporting neither the DPP nor KMT mayoral campaigns. So they also sent a team to hand out Peng’s leaflets at the DPP’s rallies and again tried to do this in a non-confrontational style. Officially, neither the DPP nor the KMT attacked Peng’s campaign. In Wen’s words, ‘they looked down on us and pretended we did not exist.’30 However, after the campaign they heard from their friends in the Ma campaign that they were furious with them and were worried this would derail Ma’s campaign.

Conclusions In this chapter, I have discussed the GPT’s second election campaigns in 1998. Although there were some changes in its campaign appeals, there was also a high degree of continuity from 1996. This was largely due to the fact that Kao and a small core team managed both elections. The majority of this chapter’s analysis thus focused on how to explain the election results and patterns of variation between different individual GPT candidates. In terms of my explanatory framework, I showed the critical role played by the changing party system, including the approaches of mainstream and other smaller parties. By 1998, the GPT was facing a much more competitive party system. However, I also argued that the key to explaining electoral success remained the actual campaign strategies adopted by the GPT. The 1998 case revealed that the GPT’s failure to institutionalise fundraising, as well as being unable to negotiate an effective alliance among other challenger parties, contributed to its disappointing results. Nevertheless, Peng’s 1998 campaign showed that even in a hostile party system, it was possible to get a balance between running a competitive campaign and staying true to the party’s

134  The first decade core values. The GPT’s nomination of alternative-style candidates and its alternative style of political communication did appeal to many voters. However, after learning valuable lessons from its early campaigns, the GPT would next enter into its lowest period, in which it only nominated token candidates and appeared to be following the pattern of many other movement parties. In other words, it was ceasing to be an electoral player after early setbacks. Understanding the GPT’s dormant period is thus the focus of the next chapter.

Notes

1 UDN Evening News, 27 November 1998, 18. 2 Ibid. 3 Kao Cheng-yan, 26 December 2014. 4 POTS (破週報). 4–13 December  1998, https://sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/proletar ian-library/books/pots/POTS.037.pdf. GPT ads are on pages 12, 17 and 21. 5 Calvin Wen, 2 January 2014. 6 Ibid. 7 Calvin Wen, 2 January 2014. 8 Ibid. 9 Linda Arrigo, letter, 12 February 2013. 10 Calvin Wen, 2 January 2014. 11 Ibid. 12 Kao Cheng-yan, 26 December 2014. 13 While Kao Meng-ting and Kao Chin-lang stood for Legislative Yuan the 1998, Lin stood for Taoyuan County Council. 14 Linda Arrigo, letter, 12 February 2013. 15 Kao Cheng-yan, 26 December 2014. 16 For an NNA ad, see Liberty Times, 25 November 1998, 5. For a TIP ad, see Liberty Times, 3 December 1998, 3. 17 Kao Cheng-yan, 20 December 2012. 18 Lin Cheng-hsiu, 20 December 2012. 19 Kao Cheng-yan, 20 December 2012. 20 Kao Cheng-yan, 26 December 2014. 21 Ibid. 22 Chang Chi-huang, 20 December 2012. 23 Peng Yen-wen, 20 December 2012. 24 Kao Cheng-yan, 26 December 2014. 25 Calvin Wen, 2 January 2014. 26 Ibid. 27 UDN Evening News, 3 October 1998, 2. 28 Calvin Wen, 2 January 2014. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid.

References Ho, Ming-sho. 2003. ‘The Politics of Anti-Nuclear Protest in Taiwan: A  Case of PartyDependent Movement.’ Modern Asian Studies, 37(3): 683–708. Ho, Ming-sho. 2006. Green Democracy: A Study on Taiwan’s Environmental Movement. Taipei: Socio Publishing.

Almost breaking through in 1998  135 Hwang, Shu-ling. 2003. ‘Masculinity and Taiwan’s Flower-drinking Culture.’ Taiwan Sociology (台灣社會學), (5): 73–132. Rigger, Shelley. 2001. From Opposition to Power: Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party. Boulder. Lynne Rienner Publishers. Weng, Hui-chen and Dafydd Fell. 2006. ‘The Rootless Movement: Taiwan’s Women’s Movement.’ In Dafydd Fell and Bi-Yu Chang, and Henning Klöter (eds.),  What Has Changed? Taiwan’s KMT and DPP Eras in Comparative Perspective. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 147–164.

8 Understanding the GPT’s quiet period 1999–2005

The collapse of the party After the promising electoral campaigns of 1996 and 1998, the GPT entered its quietest period. Even though there were multiple elections between 2000 and 2005, the party only nominated four times. The low point for the party came in its failure to nominate any candidates in the elections held in 2004 or 2005. It appeared as if the GPT had followed the pattern set by earlier challenger parties of ceasing to contest elections after suffering electoral setbacks. However, there were signs the party was recovering by early 2005, as it took an active part in the first Asia Pacific Greens Congress and the next year began preparations for the 2006 local elections. The format of this chapter will be rather different from the other explanatory chapters. There will be less coverage on the elections, as to a large extent the GPT did not run serious campaigns. Instead, I  will focus more on how can we best understand the collapse of the GPT after 1998 and how did the party re-emerge in 2005–6. In the aftermath of the 1998 defeats, Kao Cheng-yan claimed the ‘whole party almost collapsed.’1 This marks the start of the GPT’s quietest period. In Chapter 4, we saw a number of indices to show how the period between 1999 and 2005 differed from what came before and afterwards. The few GPT candidates were seemingly little more than token candidates. With the exception of limited mentions of GPT candidates, the party almost completely disappeared from the media’s attention. Chang Hung-lin described his perception of this period by saying, ‘we ought to say that basically it stopped operating.’2 Kao Cheng-yan challenged Chang on this point, noting that they did nominate candidates.3 Chang countered by pointing out that he did not see the same kind of mobilisation level or nomination of social movement representatives that had been present in the 1990s.4 Here it is important to point out that the collapse of the GPT was not inevitable. In a report written in May 2000 by Arrigo and Kao, it was clear they believed that this was a time of great potential for the GPT. They argued that a number of domestic and international factors put the ‘Green Party Taiwan in a good position in its appeal to people in Taiwan, both in national and international issues.’5 At this point in time, the party system was in a state of flux. The KMT was in shock after coming third in the 2000 presidential election. The NP was, according to its

Understanding the GPT’s quiet period  137 party chair, ‘on life support.’6 The two new parties that had undermined the GPT in 1998, the NNA and TIP, had both collapsed. However, two new splinter parties were preparing to enter the party system: the PFP and TSU (Fell 2005). They were working hard to win over voters and to encourage politicians to defect from the mainstream parties. They would become far better funded and organised parties than the ones they replaced. Therefore, by the time we get to the next round of national elections in late 2001, the party system the GPT faced was far more competitive than in 1996 or 1998. Arrigo and Kao believed that the DPP’s assumption of national office would create opportunities for the GPT. Kao recalled how a public opinion poll released in April  1999 revealed how Taiwanese public opinion had shifted from being largely pro-nuclear to a majority opposing nuclear power over the previous ten years.7 For him, this showed that they were winning the argument, even if they were not winning elections. This nuclear opportunity would actually materialise, as in early 2001 the DPP government ended up backtracking on its pledge to stop construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Station (Grano 2015, 69). However, the GPT was unable to capitalise on this window of opportunity. According to Ho and Huang, by this stage the GPT ‘appeared a spent force’ (2017, 356).

Explaining the collapse Three major themes emerged from my discussions with GPT figures over why the party collapsed after 1998. These concerned human resources, failures of leadership and the impact of the DPP coming to power. One of the most common explanations for the GPT’s collapse after 1998 was the departure of a core group of the second generation that had been critical in the party’s campaigning and operation in its first three years. Kao recalled the situation, saying, ‘at that time we had three full-time people, this one [pointing at Chang Chi-huang], this one [pointing at Peng], and one other [Chen Kuang-yu], all three said to me “I quit.” Then later they all went abroad.’8 Another of that younger generation, Calvin Wen, who also left Taiwan himself, reached a similar conclusion: ‘the GPT was mainly young people. My feeling is everyone went to study abroad. The most important people had left. Everyone seemed to have disappeared.’9 Of course, the reality was more complicated. Many who had made up the party alliance in 1996 had been drifting away even before 1998. Moreover, most of those that did leave after 1998 did not go abroad immediately. Peng, for instance, worked at the Awakening Foundation, while Wen and Chang worked as legislative assistants. Thus, even if they had wanted to stay on, it is unlikely the GPT would have had the resources to maintain its original team. A second variable, raised less often but also persuasive, concerns failures of party leadership. Between 1998 and when Kao reverted to being Convenor in 2003, the three convenors were Shih Hsin-min, Chen Kuang-yu and Ayo Cheng (鄭先祐). According to Arrigo, Shih and Cheng lacked the necessary political leadership and strategy, and she even questioned Kao’s ability to articulate longterm strategy.10 In fact, when I raised this question of party leadership during this

138  The first decade period, Kao accepted that some of them were just convenors in name and were not really running the party.11 Many GPT figures have been professors, and thus there have often been tensions between their academic pressures and social movement activism. This was also played out in the GPT’s quiet period, as Arrigo noted how ‘these three professors [Kao, Shih and Cheng] went back to their academic studies.’12 In interviews, I have often heard academic GPT figures say they needed to put party affairs aside to deal with tenure deadlines or that they will return once promotion has been sealed. The DPP’s assumption of national office in 2000 was perhaps the most commonly mentioned factor for why the GPT fell silent. However, the way respondents understood the DPP effect often varied. One suggested effect was to do with human resources. As Calvin Wen explained, after the DPP came to power . . . many people were invited to work in government. They needed so many people. So many social movement people went in. Some went into the executive side and others as legislative assistants. Some people in the GPT have very good relations with the DPP.13 Winkler came to a similar conclusion: the DPP came to power in 2000. So that really collapsed the social and environmental movements. I’ve heard from reliable sources and I am sure there is a way to verify this, that there are about 6,000 government appointees every time the government changes. 6,000 political appointees. We kept hearing the DPP needs talent and where do they get the talent? They get it from the social and environmental movements.14 An example of a GPT figure that did go into government at the time was founding member Lin Cheng-hsiu, though in his case he was actually recruited to be Director of the Department of Civil Affairs in the KMT-run Taipei City Government. This view, that the DPP hollowed out the GPT by poaching its human resources, was challenged by some who argued that no one from the party core actually entered government office. However, environmentalist Chen Jui-pin argued that many of the people that the GPT would normally be looking to recruit as candidates were now tied to the DPP government.15 A further resource-related factor that emerged was that fundraising became harder with the DPP in power. Chen Jui-pin recalled that while former funders had been prepared to support the party when the KMT was in office, they were suddenly no longer willing to fund the GPT to oppose the DPP government.16 When the DPP came to power in 2000, it did so on the back of a very broad anti-KMT alliance. A key part of this alliance were social movements. Therefore, in the campaign the DPP included key environmental appeals, such as ending nuclear power and opposing the controversial Meinong Dam. Chen’s first Environmental Minister was veteran anti-nuclear figure Edgar Lin. In the words of

Understanding the GPT’s quiet period  139 Kao, ‘the DPP absorbed all the power of social movements.’17 Hung Yu-cheng described the dilemma to civil society posed by the DPP coming to power, saying, soon after Chen Shui-bian came to power he closed the Fourth Nuclear Power Station. Then later it was not successful. At that time people were not sure what to do. The DPP was in power, should we let them bring in progressive policies or should we say, you are in power and we are the opposition and fiercely attack them? So there was a process of adjustment.18 In Meguid’s terms, the DPP took an accommodative approach for the 2000 campaign, and this served to capture or weaken social movement power for some time.

Campaigns in the quiet period The GPT had a number of disappointing campaigns during this period. At a minimum, the campaigns were a statement that though the party was no longer competitive, it did at least still exist. With this in mind, I will briefly touch upon three campaigns in the dormant period. Kao’s 2001 legislative campaign had a degree of continuity with the past. A  number of his appeals  – related to media reform, international Green Party linkages, a referendum law and use of parliamentary resources for social movements – were retained from 1998. This time, in his election gazette listing, Kao also called for reform of the electoral system (his description sounds quite similar to the actual system adopted in 2005), dealing with KMT party assets, and a referendum on name rectification.19 The latter proposal reveals Kao was still trying to brand the GPT as a Taiwanese nationalist party. Nevertheless, Kao admitted himself that ‘honestly speaking I was not really campaigning.’20 In a Taipei Times report, it was clear that the main goal of Kao’s 2001 legislative campaign was to get the 5 percent needed to retain his candidate deposit. However, in an interview GPT Central Executive Committee member Lai Fen-lan was more optimistic, noting ‘people are beginning to feel very strongly about the state of the environment, and when they see the DPP’s mishandling of [the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant] they may be drawn to our stance which is clear and unbending,’21 However, by late 2001, when the election was held, the nuclear issue had largely faded in salience, so the party was unable to benefit. Moreover, this election coincided with a high point between 2000 and 2002 in DPP party identification.22 When I asked Kao about the campaign, he explained that one of the reasons for his low vote total was that during one of his regular KMT headquarters protests, he was so badly beaten up that he was hospitalised for over a week and was only released a couple of days before voting.23 Even though this incident was reported in the media, Kao lamented it did not generate many sympathy votes. After successive defeats, Kao explained how former allies did not help as ‘everyone knew I could not get elected. Right! So I did not have many campaign activities.’24

140  The first decade A further factor that prevented the GPT from exploiting early dissatisfaction with the new DPP government was the emergence of the new and more competitive party system. When speaking to Lai 11 years later, it was clear that she saw Lee Teng-hui’s establishment of the TSU as very damaging to the GPT. She explained how he had resources, I  don’t really understand the story, and suddenly many political groups joined that party [TSU]; it was then that we realized creating a GPT would be a lot of hard work. At that time, of course Taipei was still emphasizing independence, the greatest political issues was unification or independence. So the GPT needs to convince the public that the GPT wants to transcend the issue of unification or independence, either way Taiwan needs to survive and have a good environment. But at that time, speaking this way was extremely weak.25 The other election the GPT joined in 2001 was for Hualien County magistrate. In Chi Shu-ying’s two campaigns, she tried to bring in alternative perspectives to her mainstream party competitors, such as animal welfare, sustainable development and organic farming. A key issue she focused on was opposition to the proposed Suhua motorway, a core concern for East Coast environmentalists. Instead she proposed a cycleway network, trams and fast tilting trains to reduce the journey time to Taipei. However, Chi often found it hard to get her message across. For instance, in her 2003 campaign, she protested outside the TV station when she was excluded from the televised candidate debate.26 This was one of the only times the party had joined a single member district executive post-election. For Hung Yu-cheng, this was a strategic nomination, as ‘it was impossible to win.’27 When I asked Hung to elaborate what he meant by strategic nomination, he explained, when we were doing social movement work, we did not care about winning election or not. The most important thing was issue promotion. We opposed nuclear energy for 20 years and only were successful in the last few years. We do not care so much about losing elections. If we can use this chance to speak about our ideals. Even more important, if we are in the same election as the DPP, we can talk about how we are different. That kind of promotion is very important. The DPP and KMT have got closer and if we can get 3–5 percent, we can influence the DPP. Look at how Gore was dragged down by the Green Party.28 When I spoke to former Co-Convenor Jolan Hsieh (謝若蘭), who was based in Hualien at the time, it was clear she had a less rosy view of the Hualien nominations: ‘it did not really go anywhere, and we spent a lot of money on that . . . and that the KMT is too strong there.’29 For Hsieh, this was a waste of valuable resources. In fact, Hung did admit that if they had nominated for Hualien County Council, they would have had a better chance, especially as Chung Pao-chu had

Understanding the GPT’s quiet period  141 already gained valuable election experience in 1998. However, the party opted for the more visible but hopeless county magistrate race.30 Out of the four times the GPT stood in the quiet period, the one occasion where it had the best chance of being competitive was 2002’s Taipei City Council election. The GPT was returning to District 6 where Peng had been so close to getting elected four years earlier. According to Kao, the candidate, Chen Chao-shun, had a chance to get elected. He had already served two terms as a neighbourhood chief and was, according to Kao, ‘probably the best neighbourhood chief in Taipei.’31 Moreover, because of the more competitive party system, the lowest successful candidate won with only 13,485 votes, much lower than in 1998. However, Chen managed only 1,807 votes. Kao and Peng both laid some of the blame on Chen’s campaign. Kao felt that one of Chen’s biggest mistakes was not making enough use of internet campaigning.32 Peng had come back from the US to help in the campaign and recalled how it was very hard, as he had some principles. He would not shake hands, as he said it’s not hygienic. He said it would spread diseases. He did not like to ask for votes. He was a neighbourhood chief and was not a traditional neighbourhood chief. He disliked traditional campaign methods. So he was not campaigning very hard.33 However, perhaps the most important reason was that Peng and her fellow candidates from 1998 did not stand again and so wasted the valuable experience. As Peng recalled, ‘we should have chosen someone that really wanted to stand again. Someone that could gradually build up support in the constituency. At the time we were not ready to go into a career in politics.’34 Even though Peng had been the party’s best candidate so far, it was clear she did not have the ambition to be a career politician. Peng explained, I was working very hard at being a candidate in the campaign, shaking hands and I looked very high. But I did not like the feeling of performing. I felt alienation. I felt this is not me. So after the election I felt I am not suited to a political career.35 In other words, if Peng and her fellow 1998 candidates had stayed and built up their constituency support networks, it is possible the outcome in 2002 could have been quite different. As her campaign manager Wen lamented, ‘at the time we did not think this was necessary. Standing once or twice would be OK. But later we felt this was too wasteful.’36 Wen summed up the lessons of 2002 by saying, the 2002 chance was wasted. That really was a decline and made people feel we were no longer a serious actor. A lesson from 2002 is that we needed to fight a collective battle, we could not campaign as individuals. If you just have a single weak candidate, then people will not see you as a serious candidate.37

142  The first decade

The revival of the GPT Following the disappointing 2002 city council election, Kao officially returned as Convenor and the party entered into its quietest period. With the exception of the Hualien by-election in 2003, the GPT largely disappeared from the media. Another low point was the 2004 legislative elections, for which the GPT did not nominate any candidates. Even though party member Lin Cheng-hsiu stood for election, he mainly relied on his connections to the KMT Taipei mayor to seek votes.38 There were signs that the GPT was returning to life in early 2005. The final elections for the National Assembly were held in May 2005, and Peng recalled that Kao had said to her they should nominate people.39 Kao explained that at the time, ‘no one was willing to stand.’40 Peng, who had just taken over the convenorship in early 2005, recalled that ‘we all felt it was just too rushed (to join the election).’41 Nevertheless, the fact that the party was again discussing joining elections revealed it was on the road to recovery. Chang Hung-lin saw 2005–6 as a new start for the GPT, highlighting the impact of the return of the original group from their overseas studies.42 In the words of Kao, ‘the second generation had come back!’43 Many of my interviewees cite the return of Peng Yen-wen as critical to the GPT’s revival. Although she herself claimed, ‘I did not really rebuild the party,’ the evidence suggests she deserves a huge amount of credit.44 While she was in the US, Kao came to see her on a conference trip and asked her to come back as soon as possible to help revive the party. Peng recalled that ‘I felt it was my responsibility, I felt guilty . . . we’d let the GPT fall into decline.’45 According to Peng, there were a number of ways she tried to revive the party. One was hiring a part-time administrative assistant. She recalled, ‘I was playing a role like Gao Guai [Kao], attracting people to join the GPT’s Central Executive Committee.’46 However, the kind of people Peng was recruiting were a little different; she noted that they tended to be younger and mainly female. The GPT Central Executive Committee in the ninth (2005) and tenth (2006) terms reveals that Peng had been able to bring back many who had been active in the party’s initial era and also attract a new generation of activists that would go on to play leading roles over the next decade. Key organisational and campaigning figures from the initial period included Hong Yu-cheng, Chang Chihuang, Linda Arrigo, Lin Cheng-hsiu and, of course, Kao himself. There were rising stars from the environmental movement, such as Lee Ken-cheng, Robin Winkler and Pan Han-sheng. Although Pan had been involved in the 1990s, he would grow increasingly prominent over the next 5–6 years. Many of those that Peng recruited had, like her, just graduated, such as Hsu Wen-wen and Chiu Hua-mei from the UK and Jolan Hsieh and Tu Wen-ling (杜文苓) from the US. As Peng explained, she was trying to ‘seek out successors to continue [running the party].’47 Jolan Hsieh recalled how she and Tu Wen-ling had both first got to know Peng when cooperating in a number of overseas Taiwanese organisations in the US. She

Understanding the GPT’s quiet period  143 explained that ‘then we pretty much all went back to Taiwan about the same time, so we naturally got involved in the GPT. Especially as Wen-ling and Yen-wen had prior history with the GPT.’48 This experience of long-distance team work would later prove useful, as Hsieh took an academic job in Hualien on returning to Taiwan but was able to co-convene from there. Another person that credits Peng and Wen for rebuilding the party was Robin Winkler. He had been gaining a significant amount of media attention as a result of his participation in Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Impact Assessment Committee as well as his Environmental Defence Association Wild at Heart. He described that Peng and Wen invited him to dinner at his favourite Indian restaurant in 2005 and told him of their plans to have candidates in the 2006 elections.49 He believed the GPT had hoped that his growing visibility would help their candidates’ campaigns. Moreover, numerous GPT sources emphasised that Winkler played a critical role in the party’s development for the next decade. Although the GPT’s media visibility remained low in 2005, there were clear signs of improvement. The party’s delegation had played an active part in the first Asia Pacific Greens Congress in February 2005. By the end of her term, Peng was able to hand over to a new dual convenor team in early 2006, with Jolan Hsieh Co-Convenor and Calvin Wen as Secretary General. They were thus able to start preparations for the 2006 city council elections. Jolan Hsieh recalled that she often found the experience of being Co-Convenor quite frustrating. For instance, her Co-Convenor, Lin Sheng-chong (林聖崇), was mostly out of the country, so she had to do the lion’s share of work. However, a bigger problem for Hsieh was the work attitude of some GPT activists, who ‘have many opinions and they cannot get along with different opinions.’50 In other words, the mode of operation was quite different from what she had experienced in the overseas Taiwanese organisations in the US. Another comment reflects Hsieh’s frustration and what eventually pushed her to withdraw from party affairs: ‘they love to do meetings and protests, but they do not want to do any administrative work. For me that is a big problem and so I felt this is not like a real party, I do not want to stay.’51 In addition to the rebuilding role of figures like Peng, Wen and Hsieh, there were also a number of environmental changes that contributed to the re-emergence of the GPT that need to be mentioned here. Perhaps the most critical change was the growing alienation between the environmental movement and the DPP. For Hung, the turning point in the relationship came early in the DPP administration, with the government’s betrayal on the Fourth Nuclear Power Station in early 2001. He explained, Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄DPP Premier) said they were stopping the Fourth Nuclear Power Station. Then how could they say they were restarting construction? We realised there was a difference between what they said in opposition and what they did in office. It was a process and it is hard to say when was the moment. But the Fourth Nuclear Power Station was critical.52

144  The first decade For others, the rift became more public when Chang Kuo-lung was Environment Minister (2005–7) and a large group of environmentalists, many of whom were either GPT members or close to the party, were appointed to the Environmental Impact Assessment Committee in 2005. At this point, the DPP was trying hard to promote economic growth to help its prospects of winning re-election in 2008. This meant there were severe tensions between the DPP and the environmentalists over a range of development projects. In fact, much of the interaction with the government was with then-Vice Premier Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who would later go on to be first DPP chair and then president. As Winkler recalled, ‘we had a very negative experience with the DPP.’53 Even when I first started my GPT interviews in late 2012, four years after the DPP’s term had ended, it was clear there was still a high level of antipathy towards the DPP due to its time in office.

Conclusions In this chapter, I addressed three major themes. Firstly, I looked at how we can best understand the collapse of the GPT after losing in 1998. Secondly, I briefly analysed the party’s almost token election campaigns between 1999 and 2005. Thirdly, I examined how the party managed to gradually rebuild itself starting in early 2005. In addition to frequently cited points on the GPT’s loss of human and financial resources after 1998, I also argued that questions of leadership played a role in its virtual disappearance. In fact, even before 1998 the broad alliance that Kao and Hung had built up for the party’s foundation and first campaign had begun to break up. I also showed how the rise of the DPP to national power in 2000 served to weaken civil society and, at least indirectly, undermined the GPT. The more competitive party system, especially the emergence of the TSU, was another factor in the GPT’s poor performance in its quiet period. My interviews highlighted a number of serious flaws in the campaign strategy of the one election in 2002, where it should have been more competitive. However, by far the most important reason was that Peng and her team did not stay after 1998 and build up her constituency support. Nevertheless, the chapter ends on an optimistic note, as by early 2006 Peng and a number of colleagues had made a start on the process of rebuilding and revitalising the party. The cohort of activists Peng recruited would result in a very different GPT in both its operation and policy agenda. In the next chapter, I will examine how the party returned to first local and then national elections in what would become known as the Pan Han-sheng era.

Notes

1 2 3 4 5

Kao Cheng-yan, 20 December 2012. Chang Hung-lin, 20 December 2012. Kao Cheng-yan, 20 December 2012. Chang Hung-lin, 20 December 2012. Kao Cheng-yan and Linda Gail Arrigo, ‘Green Party Taiwan,’ in May  2000 Asia Pacific Green Politics report, https://web.archive.org/web/20060118123420/www.itv. se/mp_hsand/eva/asiapolitics.htm.

Understanding the GPT’s quiet period  145 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

Hsieh Chi-ta, 7 September 2001. Kao Cheng-yan, 26 December 2014. Kao Cheng-yan, 20 December 2012. Calvin Wen, 2 January 2014. Linda Arrigo, 12 February 2013. Kao Cheng-yan, 26 December 2014. Linda Arrigo, 12 February 2013. Calvin Wen, 2 January 2014. Robin Winkler, 27 July 2013. Chen Jui-pin, 20 December 2012. Ibid. Kao Cheng-yan, 26 December 2014. Hung Yu-cheng, 14 November 2019. The term name rectification refers to the call to change the name of the country from the Republic of China to a new Taiwan-centred title. Kao Cheng-yan, 26 December 2014. Max Woodworth, ‘Political Parties,’ Taipei Times, 4 November 2001, 17. The DPP’s party identification had been on the rise since early surveys in 1992 and hit a peak of 28 percent in 2000. The DPP remained the party with the highest party identification (at about 25  percent) through until 2005, https://esc.nccu.edu.tw/pic. php?img=165_93c5f642.jpg&dir=news&title=Image. Kao Cheng-yan, 26 December 2014. Ibid. Lai Fen-lan, 17 December 2012. UDN Evening News, 20 July 2003, B1 (Hualien). Hung Yu-cheng, 14 November 2019. Ibid. Jolan Hsieh, 8 February 2019. Hung Yu-cheng, 14 November 2019. Kao Cheng-yan, 26 December 2014. Ibid. Peng Yen-wen, 2 January 2014. Ibid. Ibid. Calvin Wen, 2 January 2014. Ibid. Lin Cheng-hsiu newspaper ad, UDN Evening News, 2 December 2004, A1. On this ad, the slogan was ‘to supervise the DPP there cannot be anyone missing from the Ma Team.’ In addition to Lin, the ad showed three KMT candidates and another independent. Peng Yen-wen, 26 December 2014. Kao Cheng-yan, 26 December 2014. Ibid. Chang Hung-lin, 20 December 2012. Kao Cheng-yan, 26 December 2014. Peng Yen-wen, 2 January 2014. Ibid. Ibid. Peng Yen-wen, 26 December 2014. Jolan Hsieh, 8 February 2019. Robin Winkler, 27 July 2013. Jolan Hsieh, 8 February 2019. Ibid. Hung Yu-cheng, 14 November 2019. Robin Winkler, 27 July 2013.

146  The first decade

References Fell, Dafydd. 2005. ‘Success and Failure of New Parties in Taiwanese Elections.’ China: An International Journal, 3(2): 212–239. Grano, Simona. 2015. Environmental Governance in Taiwan. London: Routledge. Ho, Ming-sho and Chun-hao Huang. 2017. ‘Movement Parties in Taiwan, 1987–2016.’ Asian Survey, 57(2): 343–367.

Part IV

The Pan Han-sheng era 2006–2012

9 Returning to elections between 2006 and 2009 The wish of the Ladybird, Red–Green Alliance and Treetop Protest

Returning to local elections in 2006 Between 2006 and 2008, the GPT returned to both local and national election campaigning. In the words of one of its candidates and future Co-Convenors, Chang Hung-lin, ‘the 2006 election can be regarded as a new start for the GPT.’1 In order to understand the GPT’s latest phase, I will examine three campaigns during the first half of the Pan Han-sheng era. These are the 2006 Taipei City Council election, 2008 national parliamentary election and 2009 Taipei parliamentary byelection. In each election case, I will first examine the GPT’s campaign strategies and then look at how best to explain its electoral performances. Therefore, I am returning to two of my core research questions. Although the GPT only had three candidates in 2006, this was the party’s most serious campaign since 1998. Analysis of this campaign reveals changes in the issue appeals, campaign techniques and strategies. Both Taipei City Council candidates, Chang Hung-lin and Pan Han-sheng, had extensive text in their election gazette policy sections. These showed a higher degree of focus on environmental protection than had been seen by earlier GPT candidates. Pan argued that environmental centred policies could make Taipei healthier and more competitive. He criticised developmentalist projects such as Taipei 101 or the Taipei Dome, arguing that they would not make Taipei into another Manhattan, as the developers have promised. He claimed the price of such development was that a higher proportion of children have asthma in Taipei than the city most associate with pollution, Kaohsiung. Instead, he suggested turning the former Songshan Tobacco Factory site into a park or botanical garden. He also stressed the need for more environmentally friendly transport policies, especially favouring pedestrians and cycling. He noted that while in Copenhagen, 34 percent of people cycle to work, in Taipei it is only 2 percent. Chang’s gazette text showed similar environmental concerns but additionally appealed to voters dissatisfied with existing parties and stressed the need for civil society organisations to have a voice in the city council. The appeals raised by Chang and Pan also featured in their campaign events and communication. In addition, they brought in new themes, such as organic farming and food safety, particularly concerning school meals.2 These would both become

150  The Pan Han-sheng era long-term issues of concern for the party. The campaign was also innovative in its use of performances to promote issues. For instance, on the day the candidate numbers were drawn at the local election commission, Pan was dressed as a tree and Chang as a Blackfaced Spoonbill.3 Their campaign also featured a number of youth-oriented public campaign events. On the weekend before the election, it held the Wish of the Ladybird (瓢蟲的心願) music rally, which featured performances by Hakka singer Lin Sheng-hsiang (林生祥) and Atayal singer Inka Mbing (雲力思).4 This also reflects a new distinctive feature of the campaign, in that the GPT sought the endorsement of large numbers of civil society figures for these two candidates. A final feature that makes this campaign stand out is the use of internet campaigning. It should be noted, though, that the party was not yet leading this campaign innovation. Instead, an alliance of bloggers came out to support the GPT candidates. One such blogger, Huang Shu-wei (黃書緯), recalled, ‘I feel that in 2006 the GPT did not yet know what kind of role the internet could play. Because of that time, people felt this was something we could do.’5 Another of the bloggers helping the GPT at the time was its future candidate, Wang Chung-ming. He recalled the blog campaign, saying, at that time there was a blogger called Cheng Kuo-wei (鄭國威). He had a slogan ‘Make the GPT Regret’ (讓綠黨後悔). What should they regret? Regret they had only nominated three candidates. We thought they could all get elected and that three was too few. I believed it. If this had been a commercial marketing case, so many well-known bloggers were supporting it, then it should sell very well.6 This blogger campaign even gained the attention of traditional media sources such as the China Times and United Daily News.7 Pan himself was a very active blogger, and readers can get a sense of the 2006 campaign from his campaign diary on his blog, Give the Earth a Round of Applause (給地球噗仔聲).8

Understanding the GPT’s limited progress in 2006 In 2006, many had high hopes for the GPT’s campaign. It ran its most professional electoral campaign since 1998. Chen Jui-pin recalled thinking that Chang Hung-lin should have a good chance of getting elected.9 However, despite having much richer social movement experience than the 1998 candidates, the results suggest this was not enough to impress voters. Chang Hung-lin received just over a third of Peng’s 1998 vote in District 6, while Pan got less than half the votes won by Chang Chi-huang in District 3. Why, then, was the party able to improve significantly on its 2002 Taipei City Council result but still remain well below its performances in 1998? To answer this I will, once again, first look at party system factors before examining the GPT’s actual campaign.

Returning to elections  151

Party system and alliance factors When we consider the state of the party system outlined in Tables 4.2 and 4.3, it is clear this was actually another window of opportunity for a new party to enter the system. The DPP had been losing support in the midst of corruption allegations and the Red Shirts anti-corruption movement of 2006. As mentioned in the previous chapter, the DPP had also alienated many of its former social movement allies, including the environmental movement. Moreover, the splinter parties that had been so strong in 2001–2, such as the TSU and PFP, were seemingly in terminal decline (Fell 2014). The PFP had suffered a wave of defections of its politicians in 2005–7 to the KMT and in 2005–6 saw its local council seats halved. Nevertheless, GPT figures told me other aspects of the new party system posed difficulties for them. One of the things that Chang found most frustrating in his campaign was having to explain to voters that the GPT was not the DPP.10 For Chang, this was especially challenging as GPT supporters tended to be more inclined to support the DPP out of the mainstream parties. Hsieh had a similar view, noting a persistent problem was that though pro-independence people were more willing to listen to them, they tend to see environmental issues as of secondary importance. She explained, when you approach those people about elections and ask them to vote for the GPT. They will say, ‘yes I understand environmental issues are very important, but Taiwan is the most important thing and we need to vote for people who actually are pro Taiwan independence first.’ So, they can donate some money to the GPT, but they need to make sure that DPP or pro-independence groups can win the election. So that is the problem. Then we were unable to approach KMT people, as they think we are too green.11 Moreover, it would appear also that the GPT did not receive as much social movement support as in the past. One reason for this was that many social movements wanted to avoid being too openly involved in electoral and party politics. Chen Jui-pin recalls his frustration regarding how ‘when [Chang] Hung-lin stood for election, he went back to Society of Wilderness (荒野保護協會) to put up a poster but it was torn down.’12

GPT agency in its electoral fortunes in 2006 Nevertheless, we can better understand the GPT’s 2006 performance through reference to its own campaign strategies. There were many positives in the 2006 campaign. Pan and Chang had very impressive CVs and more movement experience than most of the 1998 GPT candidates. Chen Jui-pin, for instance, believed that Chang Hung-lin’s candidacy ‘was an important milestone . . . as he had been the Society of Wilderness’s Secretary General for so long.’13 There

152  The Pan Han-sheng era were more campaign events, showing that the campaign was better funded. Moreover, in addition to extensive media attention, the campaign was supported by the alliance of bloggers. Thus, it could be argued this was the GPT’s first online campaign. Huang Shu-wei, for instance, believed they benefitted from the fact that between 2002 and 2009 was the high point of blogging. In contrast, he felt that with the arrival of Facebook, much issue discussion lost its focus. Huang believed the blogging campaign was having an effect as it led the DPP to attack the GPT, rather than the usual practice of ignoring them.14 He explained that ‘from that election, you could see from the DPP’s response, it felt like we really could get at least one elected. That is why they were so worried.’15 In contrast, the campaign left another blogger, Wang Chung-ming, with a more negative conclusion: ‘but when the results came out they were terrible in all three districts. It was a big setback for me. I  thought we were a group with real influence, but we had no influence.’16 For Wang, then, the lesson was that there was a need to move beyond the virtual world and become directly involved in social movements. Overall, though, one surprising finding was that the GPT itself was so weak in its official internet efforts. One reason that this is so perplexing is that Kao was one of Taiwan’s internet pioneers. Taiwan’s first webserver was in his office. He once said to me, ‘I am the person in Taiwan that had the best chance of becoming the internet king.’17 However, the question is why he did not use those technical skills to set up Taiwan’s most effective internet campaign system. A further factor in the GPT’s campaign of limited improvement lies in its funding. The fact that the party had been able to spend NT$300,000 on a campaign event shows it was a much better funded campaign than in the past. However, to really take advantage of the window of opportunity, the party needed to at least match its 1998 nomination levels. According to Chang Hung-lin, there were three stages in the campaign: to be known, to be supported and to be financially supported. He explained that because they were unable to spend a fortune on posters, it was hard to even pass the first stage of getting known.18 Even though this was a well-funded campaign compared to what had gone on in the last 5–6 years, Jolan Hsieh’s comments reveal that the party was still far from having the kind of institutionalised fundraising system that some of its rivals had: there were a couple of people willing to do that [stand as candidates], but they did not have the money. So, we needed to borrow money from other people to pay the deposit for the candidate. And we never get the money back. That was so bad. I remember we borrowed money from a couple of environmental studies professors. In the end, I think they just forgot about it. They knew they would not be able to get their money back anyway. So that turned into a donation instead of a loan.19 A final reflection that Chang had from the campaign was about the kind of attitude needed to be a successful candidate. He admitted,

Returning to elections  153 I feel I  do not have the kind of crazy enthusiasm for elections that politicians need. To call on people to save Chang Hung-lin. Even when out having breakfast, to have that kind of crazy enthusiasm. I feel that is not me.20 Like Peng in 1998, Chang found it hard to give the kind of campaign performances that Taiwanese voters often expect of candidates. Hsieh did not name any names, but she also questioned the attitude of GPT candidates, noting that if you are not serious and want to win the election, especially when the money was from the debt, from other people, that is not your own money, then you do not try hard to get votes. So, for me, most GPT candidates, they take it as a chance to talk about GPT ideas.21 In short, if we consider my explanatory framework, the party was not yet getting the balance right. Its candidates were still tilted too far towards its core party values and thus neglecting electability (vote maximising).

2008: the GPT’s first nationwide campaign In 2008, the GPT contested the first Legislative Yuan election under the new electoral system. The party list vote meant that for the first time the GPT was an option for voters in all of Taiwan, even where it did not have a district candidate. This was also a significant election in that it campaigned in alliance with a labour group called ‘Raging Citizens Act Now’ (人民火大行動聯盟) (Ho and Huang 2017, 357). Therefore, in the press conference on December 19, 2008, the alliance was framed as a Red–Green Alliance (紅綠結盟).22 In early November, the candidate registration deadline was approaching but the alliance with Raging Citizens had not yet been agreed. At this point, GPT Secretary General Pan stated the party had three priorities for the campaign: to change the structure of Taiwan’s economy and promote a low-carbon economy, to vote against the construction of the Suhua Freeway and to build a second forest park instead of a second dome complex on the site of the old Songshan Tobacco Factory.23 This suggests that if the alliance had not been agreed, then the GPT would probably have had a more environmental protection focus. One new data for analysis starting from 2008 was the introduction of the party policy proposal section on the election gazettes.24 The electoral alliance with Raging Citizens meant that the party list election gazette text was the product of negotiations between the two partners. The three main themes in the text were (1) citizen participation in politics and government reform; (2) green economy and sustainable homeland; and (3) social and generational justice. Many of their environmental demands were familiar from previous campaigns, such as respecting the environmental impact assessment system. There were also some newer proposals, including

154  The Pan Han-sheng era reducing the voting age to 18, an anti-discrimination law, protecting the rights and interests of new immigrants, LBGT rights, protecting foreign labour and sex workers and lifting restrictions on forming unions in all sectors except the military. The use of blogs and internet campaigning was even more widespread than in 2006, with the GPT having its own blog as well as many of its candidates. One such case was Peng Yen-wen’s blog, which she used during her campaign while heavily pregnant.25 The GPT also made regular use of its blog to share campaign news, such as a GPT campaign endorsement letter signed by an extensive list of social movement, academic and cultural figures.26 This election also saw the GPT allocated its first television election adverting time slots since 1996. Although it is not clear how many seconds the GPT was allocated, the Taipei Times did report that Pan Han-sheng had criticised the Central Election Commission’s allocation decision. It reported that the Non-Partisan Solidarity Union was allocated 56 seconds, and since it, like the GPT, only had two party list candidates, we can assume the GPT had the same time allocated.27 One of the GPT’s ads stressed the need to protect Taiwan’s rich biodiversity. It ended with the narrator saying, ‘you can cast an environmental protection vote for plants, animals, yourself and your children.’28 The final frame showed the GPT badge and the slogan ‘wholeheartedly love Taiwan, smile and vote GPT (用心愛台灣 微笑投綠黨).29 Overall, the popularisation of YouTube was more important than those 56 seconds of free terrestrial TV time. One video that was widely shared in this campaign was a seven-minute video produced by GPT member Chiu Yu-bin (邱毓斌) on the theme of what the GPT is and why people should support it.30 In addition to outlining the environmental threats facing Taiwan, it introduces the international dimension of Global Greens and the GPT’s long history of campaigning for environmental protection. But it also shows how the party had campaigned on new social issues, such as protecting the Losheng Sanatorium and promoting the rights of the LGBT community. A further message was the importance of the party list vote, a critical appeal for the GPT considering that its district candidates were not competitive. Looking back, district candidate Peng Yen-wen recalled that ‘that was not seriously trying to win, more like just making up the numbers. We had to have ten district candidates, so that we could collect the second party vote. So we did not need to really campaign.’31 GPT’s new issue appeal can be explained by both the alliance with Raging Citizens and the policy concerns of the new generation of GPT activists that joined following the party’s rebirth after 2005. Additionally, as Peng explained, the party also had to adjust its campaigning style in response to the new electoral system.

The GPT’s second national election The new electoral system reinforced the nationwide nature of the campaign, as for the first time all voters had at least option of voting GPT on the party list. However, from Table 4.4 we can see that even with the party list, the GPT only

Returning to elections  155 managed to get 58,473 votes in 2008 (for all of Taiwan) compared to 113,949 in 1996 (just for the 13 districts where it nominated). Therefore, we could say the party still fell well short of its popularity of the 1990s. What, then, explains the limitations in the GPT’s return to national-level elections? Party system factors Despite the challenges posed by the new Legislative Yuan electoral system, the state of party competition in 2008 did offer some opportunities for the GPT. The DPP was in disarray by this time. It had been left deeply divided by the corruption scandals surrounding Chen Shui-bian, as well as a divisive presidential primary for the 2008 election. The fact that Chen Man-li (陳曼麗) switched from the DPP to become GPT Co-Convenor reveals how disappointed many were with the DPP in civil society. Moreover, the splinter parties were in an even worse state than in 2006, while the other parties on the party list were largely brand-new groupings without any real organisational base. The PFP, and to a lesser extent the NP and TSU, had been taken over by the mainstream parties, who were encouraging incumbent small party politicians to defect (Fell 2014). The biggest threat to the GPT from other small parties came from the TSU. The TSU was seemingly in a life or death struggle to survive and so spent heavily on election advertising. An example of its adversarial approaches towards the GPT concerned the environmental professor Chen Yu-feng, who featured in the stillborn 1995 Green Party discussed in Chapter 3. In this case, he had originally agreed to stand for the GPT but, in the words of Pan Han-sheng, ‘the TSU used what is close to a deceptive method to change teacher Chen Yu-feng’s mind,’ so that he switched to the TSU party list when it came for the official candidate registration.32 Pan even talked about the TSU shifting to a centre left appeal through nominating figures that had been involved in the movement to protect the Losheng Sanitorium.33 In the aftermath of the election, the GPT’s Secretary General Pan Han-sheng put the blame on the ‘unreasonable voting system and election laws, as well as the nation’s media, all of which are geared to the advantage of the two main parties – the DPP and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).’34 There is no doubt that the new electoral system had an effect, as the single member districts became merely a contest between the two large parties and many voters were still uncertain about the party list vote. Pan was critical of the limited efforts by the Central Election Commission to educate voters about the party list vote. In theory, the new electoral system should have offered more opportunity for small parties, but as the late political scientist Lin Jih-wen (林繼文) explained, the smaller parties may have lost because of strategic sacrifices – they only had a real chance of winning legislator-at-large seats by winning protest votes. However, 5 percent translates to almost half-a-million votes and there are not that many protest votes out there.35

156  The Pan Han-sheng era The GPT campaign in 2008 Although the party system factors did have a limited impact, my research suggests that the GPT’s actual campaign was again the key to understanding the party’s electoral progress and its limitations. One of the achievements of the GPT’s 2008 campaign was the ‘Red–Green Alliance’ with Raging Citizens. One thing I found surprising was that when I went through all my interviews and focus groups transcripts, almost no one mentioned this alliance. For instance, when I  discussed 2008 with then-Co-Convenor Chen Man-li, this was never mentioned. Thus, this stands in stark contrast with the bitter disputes over the GPT SDP Alliance in 2016. One GPT member recalled how the two parties had separated on bad terms (不歡而散).36 However, the interaction between the two sides in the pre-election press conference videos suggests there was a good initial working relationship. In one of the few comments I found on 2008, Central Executive Committee member Yeh Ce-rong (葉慈容) commented on how ‘Raging Citizens is a very well organized group, I feel this is something that the GPT can learn from.’37 She recalled that if they had an event they could always get people to turn up, while the GPT’s members are much less reliable. In 2014, I spoke to Wang Fang-ping (王芳萍), who had been one of Raging Citizen’s two party list candidates, about her reflections on standing for the GPT in 2008. Even though it was a one off, she spoke quite positively about the experience, particularly admiring the political ambition and discourse of the young GPT team.38 She noted that while she did do Taiwanwide campaigning in her role of party list candidate, to a certain extent, the Raging Citizens ran their own style of campaign, particularly focusing on the two districts where their candidates were standing. Overall, though, we can conclude that this alliance did bring in a significant chunk of votes for the GPT. In contrast, one example of a failed integration was with the Third Society Party led by former DPP figure Chou Yi-cheng (周奕成). In this case, the two parties discussed possible cooperation but, according to Pan, ‘because both sides still had some differences on some ideals, in the end the GPT decided to stand for election on its own.’39 The key points of difference were not made clear. One possibility is that Chou was seen as too close to the DPP and old mainstream style politics. In fact, the day before it was confirmed the two parties would run separately, Chou had a public meeting with former president and TSU spiritual leader Lee Teng-hui. When I raised the story with Chou, he explained that originally we were willing to cooperate, but later party elders in the GPT opposed it and so it ended. On our side, we did not have any issues over ideals or seats. It was the GPT that decided at the last minute they did not want to cooperate.40 If they had managed to bring the Third Society Party into the alliance, then it is likely the GPT could have at least exceeded 1 percent. The Co-Convenor for the 2008 election, Chen Man-li, admitted she found the campaign challenging and at times frustrating. Having worked in one of Taiwan’s

Returning to elections  157 leading environmental groups, Homemakers United, for well over two decades, she found the GPT’s organisational culture problematic. Chen explained, when I entered I felt the GPT’s party organization was not very tight. People would participate in discussions they were interested in. So people proposed to establish an environmental protection party branch, or a women’s party branch, animal rights party branch, but I discovered afterwards there were not regularly scheduled discussions that followed up [these decisions]. So that’s why I say it’s rather loose.41 She also discovered that the GPT was very broad in its issue focus compared to the more focused NGOs she was used to. But she noted that the GPT did not operate like a normal political party. ‘The GPT does issues, not organization, and many political parties are actually doing organization, and issues are done casually.’42 Additionally, she highlighted the GPT’s weak human resources, saying, it doesn’t have notable figures that people in society would recognize. So for example, when I was a candidate I discovered that a lot of people were pulled into the GPT at the last minute and after the election these people just went back, didn’t continue participating in the GPT.43 When I  asked her about trying to recruit experienced politicians who have an environmental protection background, she recalled, so why do many political figures curse their own parties but won’t leave? I know some legislators who care about the environment and later did not run again for legislator. We’ve thought about bringing them over to the GPT, but they’re not willing to come because they know that our platform isn’t big enough and their networks are in another system which helped them get elected.44 This partly explains the pattern I discussed in Chapter 5, whereby politicians from established parties almost never switch to movement parties like the GPT. The introduction of the nationwide party list vote was an opportunity for the party but also a severe challenge. This was the first time Yu Wan-ju had become involved in a GPT campaign, as her partner Hsu Wen-yen was standing. She observed how one of her initial impressions was that ‘the GPT comparatively lacked organization or vote brokers.’45 This put the GPT at a severe disadvantage compared with the two mainstream parties, which had candidates and party networks in almost every district. She believed that the bloggers that first allied with the party in 2006 also played a key role in allowing the party’s message to spread around Taiwan that year. It is also important to note that the GPT was beginning to rebuild its social movement support networks. For instance, the endorsement petition for the GPT released on January 4, 2008, included a very impressive range of figures from Taiwan’s social movement, academic and cultural sectors.46 That

158  The Pan Han-sheng era petition, together with the party’s numerous social movement candidates, gave the impression that the GPT was returning to a similar kind of diverse appeal that had last been seen in its 1996 campaign. The new electoral system also created a dilemma for the district candidates. Since the district elections were clearly just a battle between the two big parties, their primary function was to boost the party list. Looking at the individual candidate results in 2008 reveals some variation in how they performed, with some well above the party list average and others even below that level. The highest GPT voter winner was Wang Hsing-chih (王醒之) with 3,426 votes (2.34 percent) in Keelung, and extensive press reports suggest he was campaigning hard. However, though the GPT party list vote in Keelung was slightly higher than average at 0.71 percent, it was well below Wang’s candidate vote. This suggests he was largely running a Raging Citizens campaign. In contrast, the second highest vote winner was Chung Pao-chu in Hualien, who had last run in 1998. She was able to boost the GPT party list so that Hualien became only second to Taipei City that year. Yu recalled her impression in 2008 of observing the campaign of the party’s only star, Pan Han-sheng: ‘I felt there is no way this party will get anyone elected’47 She particularly highlighted his relaxed campaigning from the office style as problematic. In fact, despite his so-called star status, Pan’s district vote share of 0.88  percent was actually below the GPT’s Taipei City party list vote share of 1 percent. Yu’s comment is probably a little unfair, as an examination of Pan’s blog suggests he was campaigning harder than fellow Taipei City candidate Peng Yen-wen. She described her campaign in these terms. There was no chance of being elected, so we did not bother to really campaign. Only once or twice when we invited reporters to take some pictures. Because at that time I was pregnant. I was shaking hands while pregnant and that made a good news story. It was a way to raise the GPT’s visibility.48 Interestingly, Peng’s campaign seems to have attracted more sympathy votes than Pan’s more active one, as she received 1 percent in her district. The 2008 campaign marked the GPT’s return to national elections. Although the results were disappointing, they left the GPT as the leading alternative party in Taiwan. The party was still well short of being competitive, but to use Spoon’s terminology, it gave greater priority to vote maximisation. The next test would be how it would build on this experience in the next round of local elections in 2010 and, before those, a legislative by-election in 2009.

2009  tree protest by-election In 2009, the GPT took part in its first and so far only legislative by-election for Taipei City District 6. Although Calvin Wen’s eventual vote share was poor, it did attract high levels of media attention. When Wen’s campaign headquarters was established, some DPP figures even joined the event, and in mid-February

Returning to elections  159 he featured in an in-depth interview in the Taipei Times.49 A mark of the potential of the campaign was that the TVBS Poll Center survey even included a GPT candidate as an option for the first time, with Wen coming in with 2 percent in mid-February, six weeks before the election.50 But what really gave Wen widespread media attention was his tree protection protest. This occurred as part of the long-term campaign to protect old trees from being removed to make way for the controversial Taipei Dome project. Wen recalls that that day I  was out campaigning about 6pm, and Pan Han-sheng called me saying they can’t stop them. It’s already fenced off. He told me to think of something to do. At that time my campaign manager Lee Yi-chieh (李宜潔) was with me. She told me to go there. She could not keep up with me, as I immediately got over the wall. When I got there, I’ve been a legislator’s assistant. I  know how to handle the situation, so I  went over and shouted at the police chief. I  got closer. The security people tried to stop me, they thought who is this? I kept going in. Lee Yi-chieh kept saying ‘wait for me.’ I  did not wait for her. I  kept saying to the police chief ‘If you dare touch me’ . . . they did not know who I was. Then I saw Pan Han-sheng and a few others were around the tree. Then I began discussing with them. We agreed we’d pretend to leave and then go up the tree. But I was the best at climbing. Arthur Yo (游藝) (another tree protection movement leader) was afraid. I tried to pull him up but he was pulled back by two policemen. None of the others had a chance to get up. You Yi called me to pull him up. But he was fat and two were pulling him down. I could not pull him up.51 Wen stayed up the tree for 26 hours before the police eventually forced him down and arrested him. His actions were able to generate a similar level of media attention to that which was so critical for Peng Yen-wen’s campaign in 1998. The protest also helped reinforce tree protection as a key element in the GPT’s party image, at least until the party split of 2014 that led to the creation of the Trees Party.

Understanding the GPT’s limited progress in the Taan by-election In Chapter 7, I touched upon Kao Cheng-yan’s regret that the party did not join the Xizhi mayoral by-election back in 1996. In the UK, by-elections are often taken as an opportunity for smaller parties to gain valuable publicity, and at times small parties may even be competitive, as voters seek to punish mainstream parties. Given that there have been a large number of by-elections in Taiwan since the introduction of the new electoral system in 2008, I have been a little surprised that the GPT has not made more use of such opportunities. The 2009 Taan by-election (Taipei City District 6) was perhaps the most media-covered by-election ever held in Taiwan, and Wen was able to garner valuable media attention. The outcome

160  The Pan Han-sheng era though, as we saw in Table 4.8, was pretty disastrous. However, this result was not inevitable, and in fact, the GPT could have been more competitive. The election occurred a year after the DPP lost power in the 2008 national elections. There was potential for the GPT, as the original KMT legislator had been disqualified due to holding US citizenship and its new candidate was a rather bland, if experienced, city councillor. The DPP was still recovering from 2008, and its new leader, Tsai Ing-wen, had not yet consolidated power within the party. In addition, the other small parties had largely collapsed as a result of the 2008 elections. One reason this election offered particular potential for the GPT was because the DPP had seriously considered not nominating and instead supporting a GPT candidate. Taan is known as one of the safest KMT districts, and so a regular DPP candidate would normally not stand a chance. On February  5, 2009, the GPT denied media reports of an alliance between it and the DPP for GPT Central Executive Committee member Robin Winkler to stand against the KMT.52 Former DPP legislator and Central Standing Committee member Lo Wen-chia (羅文嘉) had been a strong supporter of the idea of supporting a GPT candidate in this district. He explained that on January 21, it had been agreed that the DPP would support the GPT candidate. After reporting to the chair, Tsai Ing-wen, he and Deputy Secretary Hung Yao-fu (洪耀福) visited the GPT’s Secretary General Pan Han-sheng to state their position of supporting the GPT in the by-election.53 However, the DPP later changed its mind and announced on February 6 that it was nominating its city councillor, Chou Po-ya (周柏雅).54 Lo was very unhappy with the DPP’s decision and publicly stated he would still vote for the GPT in this election, despite the calls for him to be expelled from the DPP.55 This raises the question of why the DPP changed its mind. Winkler recalled that the DPP later realised that he could be disqualified, as he had only become a Taiwan citizen in 2003 and ‘the law says you’ve got to be a citizen for ten years before you can run in elections.’56 One possibility is that the decision was linked to factional power struggles within the DPP, especially as Lo had been heavily attacked by deep green figures in the latter part of Chen Shui-bian’s second term as president.57 Kao, however, had been told that the DPP had been willing to back the GPT, if the candidate was strong enough. He explained, ‘if I had stood, they [DPP] would not have had any objection. But everyone else wanted to stand.’58 When the GPT rejected his initial offer to stand, Kao then proposed that Peng should stand instead, but again his suggestion was not taken up. Kao thus believed that the GPT’s indecisiveness and eventual nominated candidate resulted in the DPP deciding to drop its backing of a GPT candidate. Once it was clear that the DPP was going to nominate its own candidate, then winning or even being competitive was no longer possible; however, the GPT’s vote share still should not have been so low. Calvin Wen’s 26-hour tree occupation should have attracted more than just 1,058 votes. Two key factors that emerged from interviews were GPT divisions over nomination and the party’s relationship with social movements. Firstly, there was much internal competition over who would be the candidate. Apart from those already mentioned, Secretary General

Returning to elections  161 Pan Han-sheng and 1996 candidate Chang Shu-mei also were vying for nomination. Even when the party settled on Wen as candidate, with Pan as his campaign manager, it was clear there were still internal divisions. After the GPT announced Wen as the candidate, Winkler explained to the press that he had not given up the chance of standing.59 Wen recalled that he felt there was ‘some internal disquiet’ about his candidacy.60 For instance, Wen believed that though Winkler helped finance the campaign, he did not seem to be campaigning as enthusiastically as expected. The nomination also left some of the 1990s generations such as Kao and Chang Shu-mei deeply dissatisfied. The nomination process also took too long, meaning that Wen only had six weeks to run his campaign. Overall, the process highlighted the inner-party divisions and the lack of an institutionalised and transparent nomination system. These would both be problems that would plague the party in future campaigns. Both Wen and Winkler were disappointed that social movements in which GPT members had actively participated had not got behind the campaign. Wen, for instance, recalled how the left-wing independent media website Cooloud (苦勞網) had questioned the legitimacy of his nomination and the idea of the GPT as a representative of social movements.61 He was even accused of trying to take advantage of the Taipei Dome tree protection movement for his election campaign. Winkler also had high expectations of social movement support but noted, nobody rallied around us. We had very little support. There was a feeling, from that time I started getting the feeling. Because I was thinking the people from Hualien are going to come up who are against the Suhua highway, the people from the Lo Sheng Sanatorium, are going to come and all these groups.62 This accusation that the GPT was trying to take advantage of social movements for electoral benefit was to be another challenge for the party and a source of great frustration for seasoned activists like Pan, Wen and Winkler. In short, this section has shown how the GPT’s relationship with both a mainstream party and social movements, as well as its own internal divisions, all contributed to its less than ideal performance in 2009. If the party had better handled its negotiations with the DPP and its own nomination, it could have been more competitive and gained more positive publicity.

Conclusions In this chapter, I have examined how the GPT returned to electoral politics after a long absence. At a time when other small parties were collapsing, the GPT looked to be on the rise and had cemented its position as the leading alternative party. It had run innovative and policy-rich campaigns that had also generated much positive media attention. Despite the impressive progress, however, the actual election results in this period were quite disappointing. It was still below the support levels seen in the 1990s. The next step was whether it could move up a level and become

162  The Pan Han-sheng era a competitive party that could really win seats. The next chapter will look at how Pan and his colleagues attempted to reform the party to allow it to make its longawaited breakthrough.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Chang Hung-lin, 20 December 2012. UDN Evening News, 25 November 2006, C2 Taipei. UDN Evening News, 16 November 2006, C1 Taipei. UDN Evening News, 5 December 2006, C2 Taipei. Huang Shu-wei, 20 December 2012. Wang Chung-ming, 14 September 2018. UDN Evening News, 5 December 2006, C2 Taipei. https://panhan3.pixnet.net/blog/category/1541958. Chen Jui-pin, 20 December 2012. Chang Hung-lin, 20 December 2012. Jolan Hsieh, 8 February 2019. In this case, Hsieh’s reference to ‘green’ refers to the DPP, not the GPT. 12 Chen Jui-pin, 20 December 2012. 13 Ibid. 14 Huang Shu-wei, 20 December 2012. 15 Ibid. 16 Wang Chung-ming, 14 September 2018. 17 Kao Cheng-yan, 26 December 2014. 18 Chang Hung-lin, 20 December 2012. 19 Jolan Hsieh, 8 February 2019. 20 Chang Hung-lin, 20 December 2012. 21 Jolan Hsieh, 8 February 2019. 22 www.civilmedia.tw/archives/216. 23 Meggie Lu, ‘Green Party Taiwan Names Five Candidates,’ Taipei Times, 6 November 2007, 3. 24 Previously, the party list section on the election gazette had not included a policy proposal section, for instance in the GPT’s 1996 party list. 25 http://yenwenny.blogspot.com/2007/. 26 This can be found on Pan Han-sheng’s blog, posted 9 January 2008, https://panhan3. pixnet.net/blog/category/1541964. 27 Shih Hsiao-kuang, ‘Small Parties Unhappy with Airtime,’ Taipei Times, 17 December 2007, 3. 28 www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=52&v=5uzpaLd8aS4&feature=emb_logo. 29 Ibid. 30 http://gptaiwan.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_8348.html. 31 Peng Yen-wen, 2 January 2014. 32 www.civilmedia.tw/archives/139. 33 https://panhan3.pixnet.net/blog/category/1541964/2. 34 Meggie Lu, ‘Legislative Elections and Referendums: Smaller Parties Suffer a Setback,’ Taipei Times, 13 January 2008, 3. 35 Ibid. 36 GPT Member, Taipei Branch Focus Group, 5 January 2014. 37 Yeh Ce-rong, 5 January 2014. 38 Wang Fang-ping, 4 January 2015. 39 https://panhan3.pixnet.net/blog/post/26130235. 40 Chou Yi-cheng, Facebook message, 20 August 2020.

Returning to elections  163 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

Chen Man-li, 17 December 2012. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Yu Wan-ju, 20 December 2012. https://panhan3.pixnet.net/blog/post/26130285. Yu Wan-ju, 20 December 2012. Peng Yen-wen, 2 January 2014. Meggie Lu, ‘INTERVIEW: Green Party Unafraid of Longshot in by-Election,’ Taipei Times, 17 February 2009, 3. 50 TVBS Poll Center, ‘Taipei City Taan District Legislative Bu-Election Survey One Month Before the Election’ (台北市大安區立委補選前一個月民調), 17 February 2009, https://cc.tvbs.com.tw/portal/file/poll_center/2017/20170602/doshouldo-200902 18142306.pdf. 51 Calvin Wen, 2 January 2014. 52 Meggie Lu and Mo Yan-Chih, ‘Green Party Denies Media Report about Alliance with DPP,’ Taipei Times, 5 February 2009, 3. 53 UDN Evening News, 23 February 2009, A4. 54 UDN Evening News, 7 February 2009, A3. 55 UDN Evening News, 22 February 2009, A4. 56 Robin Winkler, 27 July 2013. 57 Flora Wang, ‘DPP Bandits in Call for Rational Debate,’ Taipei Times, 30 December 2006, 3. 58 Kao Cheng-yan, 26 December 2014. 59 Meggie Lu, ‘Green Party Taiwan Picks Legislative Choice,’ Taipei Times, 12 February 2009, 3. 60 Calvin Wen, 2 January 2014. 61 Ibid. 62 Robin Winkler, 27 July 2013.

References Fell, Dafydd. 2014. ‘Measuring and Explaining the Electoral Fortunes of Small Parties in Taiwan’s Party Politics.’ Issues and Studies. An International Quarterly on China, Taiwan, and East Asian Affairs, 50(1): 153–188. Ho, Ming-sho and Chun-hao Huang. 2017. ‘Movement Parties in Taiwan, 1987–2016.’ Asian Survey, 57(2): 343–367.

10 The struggle to become a relevant party The 2010 and 2012 campaigns

2010: new issues and team campaigning After the GPT’s return to electoral politics, in the second half of the Pan era, it tried to move up a level to become a relevant party that could really win seats. This involved changes both to its electoral appeals and strategies, but also organizational reform. It was attempting to turn the GPT into a professional social movement party. This chapter will look at both the contents of the GPT’s new electoral strategies and how best to explain its electoral performances in the 2010 local and 2012 national elections. These were equivalent to the elections analysed in Chapter 9, so it gives us a chance to evaluate the impact of the Pan reforms. This chapter was more challenging to write as there is more to explain. There were more serious candidates for a start. As in the GPT’s initial period, there was variation in how candidates performed, such as at the city council level in 2010. In addition, there were individual high-profile candidate campaigns that need to be explained, such as Pan Han-sheng’s semi-alliance with the DPP in Taipei City Legislative District 7 in 2012. There was also significant change in the party’s issue appeals and campaign communication, as well as in the types of candidates representing the party. For instance, there was a noticeable rise in emphasis on youth and LGBT appeals, and these served to give the party a more diverse image. Thus, another challenge for this chapter is to address why we see these changes in the party’s issue appeals. The city council elections in 2010 featured the first team of GPT candidates since 1998. Although there was some continuity, such as Pan and Chang standing again, there was also much change. There was a much more professional style of political communication and also greater focus on a new set of issue appeals. In the press event announcing the candidates, writer Chang Tieh-chih (張鐵志) explained his understanding of why the GPT is important: ‘the KMT just cares about the economy, the DPP only seems to care about localisation. It seems no one cares about justice, Taiwan’s ecology or environmental protection problems.’1 In terms of issue focus, there was again much attention to environmental protection campaigns. The GPT campaign event that received the most media attention was a protest against alleged political interference to speed up the environmental impact assessment of the Suhua motorway. As part of the protest, all five candidates had their hair shaved off as they shouted slogans against the process. A TV

The struggle to become a relevant party  165 news report showed that, as shaving was being completed, a tearful Song Chia-lun (宋佳倫) warned that following this precedent it was likely that the government would treat future environmental impact assessments like this, such as the controversial Kuokuang Naphtha Cracker case in Changhua.2 Like Pan Han-sheng’s tree protection campaigns, environmental protection was at the heart of Wang Chung-ming’s campaigning in Tamsui in New Taipei City District 1. What made Wang exceptional was his remarkable social movement success rate. Our movement cases, I never lost. The three most important cases were Tamsui North Shore Road Project, the environmental impact assessment passed but we won the High Administrative Court lawsuit (Grano 2015, 160). In the end that cannot be changed. The second was the widening of Chongchien Street (重建街), that is the first and oldest road in Tamsui. I did not take part in the first campaign against widening, but the second widening case I helped solve the problem. Now they can never widen it. Again, we used law suits. The third was Tanhai New City Stage 2 (淡海新市第二期的計畫), the compulsory land acquisition case. This was also blocked. It’s now stalled. So, the people who support these projects were furious, so there are a group of people who really hate me in Tamsui. Because I really blocked these projects.3 Wang’s role in the campaign against the Tamsui North Shore Road project is discussed in some detail in Grano’s book Environmental Governance in Taiwan (2015). Part of Wang’s support base was related to this activism, but he also engaged in a more traditional style of networking. As Wang explained, we were locals and had good networks. We did not especially make use of our local personal networks. . . . My father used to be the head of Tamsui Kiwanis, and my uncle was the head of the Lions Club. My grandfather used to be the Chairman of the Farmers Association. I  had strong interpersonal relations in Tamsui. When I was out in the streets campaigning people would say you are . . . and recognize me. We also relied on our social movement record, our development vision, my steady social networks in Tamsui. We thought this should be enough for the campaign.4 One of the other major differences from earlier campaigns was the use of professionally made election advertising. A series of six such ads were made and only shared on the internet. In our journal article, Peng and I (Fell and Peng 2016, 80) described them as ‘innovative TV ads.’ Unfortunately, all six have now been removed from YouTube and we only have the ad titles.5 I recall that the Map ad highlighted that the GPT is the only real international party in Taiwan. Winkler recalled the production process of these ads, saying, there was a woman who’s a GPT member and she did film. She looked at the Apple ads. The Apple versus PC. She sent me those and said ‘Is this the kind

166  The Pan Han-sheng era of thing?’ I sent her some things from adbuster. I think she did a really good job. . . . We tried to organise something with brainstorming and put up stickers and that was the basis of those films but I think it was myself, Bin-yuan [Calvin Wen] was running in and out of campaigns. So it was not a big group effort. It’s a reflection that this woman is incredibly talented.6 Let me briefly describe the one 10-second internet ad that is still available from that 2010 campaign.7 The ad shows each of the five candidates and their district and candidate numbers, and for each of them there is a single line slogan. For Wang Chung-ming, it was, ‘youth return home, Tanhai becomes prosperous’; for Song Chia-lun, ‘let us be able to afford a home;’ for Pan Han-sheng, ‘shout out for the Earth’; for Li Ying-hsuan, ‘change the future for the poor and busy class’; and for Chang Hung-lin, ‘end the killing of stray animals.’ It ended with the slogan, ‘on November 27 vote GPT: ecology, sustainability and green economy.’ The biggest change in issue emphasis, however, was the clearer focus on youth, inequality and sexuality. For instance, 25-year-old Li Ying-hsuan’s election gazette stressed issues such as high levels of student debt, stagnant wages facing young people and the need for student representation in City Hall. She also highlighted the challenges facing busy, poor youth, especially for those on temporary contract work. Song Chia-lun’s policy proposals were even more innovative, focusing on the three themes of opposing exploitation of temporary workers, legalising sex work and protecting the rights of the homeless. The human rights of sex workers had been a concern of the feminist movement since the dispute over licenced brothels in Taipei in 1997–8, but this was a rare instance of a candidate having the courage to take a clear stance (Weng and Fell 2006). In a Taipei Times feature, it was reported that ‘in 2004, Song cofounded the BDSM Company (皮繩愉虐邦), which holds lectures and meetings to raise awareness of and destigmatize sadomasochism.’8 Song explained, ‘ “if I could take on a job as a dominatrix legally, that would be a highly specialized job with a hefty salary,” she said. “Instead, I am forced to toil away in low-pay, contract jobs.” ’9 Although there had been GPT references to LGBT rights in earlier elections, 2010 was significant in that it was placed at the forefront of the GPT’s campaign and became a core part of the party’s image for the next few campaigns. This was visible in the party’s visual brand. For instance, on the internet TV ad, the GPT badge was now surrounded by rainbow rings, and in press events the candidate sashes also included rainbow colours. The fact that the GPT had two openly gay candidates caught both media and academic attention. For instance, the Taipei Times had a feature piece that interviewed the three openly gay candidates standing in the council election, describing them as ‘a scruffy gay man who campaigns for eco-friendly agriculture, a slender dominatrix and a veteran feminist activist – demonstrate just how diverse the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community is.’10 Even though Wang’s campaign was very focused on local environmental and governance issues, his campaign as

The struggle to become a relevant party  167 an openly gay candidate was symbolic for the community and the GPT. Wang explained his thinking at the time: by the time we got to early 2010, I had a strong feeling that though I was doing environmental movement work, it was the time for a political LGBT to come out. So, I decided that we had to have a LGBT candidate in the year end elections, and I started to look for one.11 However, he was unable to find a suitable candidate, so, after consideration I realised I had no other choice but to stand. . . . I felt that to stand was not quite right. But this seemed the only way that the GPT would nominate a LGBT candidate, so I had to stand. For me it was important that the GPT had a LGBT candidate, on the one hand I am gay and as a GPT member I thought this was something I had to do.12

Why did the GPT adopt this new campaign approach in 2010? Before analysing the 2010 results, it is necessary to briefly explain the change in GPT issue emphasis, in particular the increased stress on gender and youth appeals. Of course, these issues had been raised in earlier campaigns, but the nomination of two openly gay candidates did affect the overall GPT party image. A number of interviews cited the arrival of new actors in the party as critical in this changed image and issue emphasis. For instance, party member Hsu Hui-ting (許惠婷) recalled how, in 2010, ‘Song Chia-lun and Wang Chung-ming especially stressed LGBT issues, leading LGBT circles to pay attention. . . . then Li Yinghsuan was a student at that time . . . so (attracting) the young student group.’13 Yu Wan-ju also highlighted the impact of ‘the new bunch of people that joined in 2010, Huang Yung-mei (黃詠梅), Song Chia-lun and Elza [Wang].’14 These newcomers affected both the party image and its operation as they took up roles as candidates and on the Central Executive Committee; Wang Chung-ming served as spokesperson twice, while Huang was Secretary General in 2011–12. One other important element of party change was a controversial organisational reform in 2010. Winkler described it as ‘Han-sheng’s reorganization.’15 Yu’s explanation of the change was that the Central Executive Committee members would become paid administrative staff. While Pan believed that this would make the party a more effective electoral machine, it led to very bitter internal arguments. Yu described it as being ‘like where the players are also the referees. So today I am a Central Executive Committee member, then I can decide salaries and how I spend the donated money.’16 The outgoing Co-Convenor (2009–10), Chang Hung-lin, was strongly opposed to this reorganisation at the time. Over two years later, in the GPT focus groups in December 2012, it was apparent this was still a sensitive topic. In our party member focus groups in 2014 as well, participants

168  The Pan Han-sheng era recounted the heated arguments over this reform at the party’s annual meetings. In other words, while there had been internal divisions over nomination in 2009, by 2010, for the first time, bitter power struggles in the GPT were being aired publicly.

Understanding the GPT electoral performance in 2010 In 2010, the GPT had its most extensive local council nominations since 1998, again with a focus on Taipei and New Taipei City. Although the GPT vote shares were up in 2006 and the average vote share was higher than 1998, none of the candidates could yet be called competitive, as a number were at approximately a third of the lowest successful candidate. The results in 2010 present a number of puzzles. Firstly, what explains the limited growth that the party enjoyed? Secondly, when we consider that this was Chang and Pan’s third election and the improved party funding, why were they not more competitive? Thirdly, why was the newcomer Wang Chung-ming’s campaign especially strong? By 2010, the party system was quite different from four years earlier. The DPP was recovering well under Tsai Ing-wen’s leadership and looked like it had a chance to return to power in 2012. The splinter parties were also attempting a revival. After their heavy loss of defecting politicians in the run-up to 2008, the TSU and PFP needed to make sure they could hold on to their remaining local seats. A review of the four districts the GPT nominated in Taipei City reveals how competitive these contests were. In addition to high nomination levels by the two mainstream parties, the GPT candidates had to also face two and at times three competing splinter parties. However, at this stage the GPT remained the only alternative party in the Taipei local elections. Nevertheless, my research suggests that the answer to the 2010 puzzles mainly lies in the GPT’s own balancing between vote maximising and its core values. The Asia Pacific Greens Congress in April–May generated significant momentum as well as bringing new people into the party. According to Winkler, ‘that pulled in [Wang] Chung-ming and a couple of others [Huang] Yung-mei and [Song] Chia-lun. They became, along with [Pan] Han-sheng, the Green Party office. And there was Chung-ming’s boyfriend Aduan.17 So we had these five people.’18 Although the GPT’s 2010 reforms had been controversial, Winkler believes that the new team and style of operation were critical for the party. As he explained, ‘I credit Yung-mei and Chia-lun for, along with Chung-ming and Aduan, for really rejuvenating the party in 2010 for that election.’19 With this new team and organisation, the GPT started its campaign earlier than previous years. The team campaigning style and the candidate characteristics also helped boost the party’s votes in 2010. In addition to now quite experienced social movement activist candidates Pan and Chang, the new candidates helped bring in a new cohort of activists and supporters. The member and supporter interviews suggested that this focus on the challenges facing young people, such as stagnant wages and student debt, were resonating with voters at this time. Similarly, Song’s article argued that Wang Chung-ming’s candidacy served to benefit the GPT’s

The struggle to become a relevant party  169 overall campaign and that it was also a milestone for Taiwan’s LGBT rights movement (Song 2011). The GPT was also much more adept at gaining media attention by this stage, as we saw in the head shaving protest against the Suhua motorway. Furthermore, the first professionally made GPT TV ads were now being widely viewed and shared on YouTube, allowing the party to overcome its inability to purchase paid TV ad time. The party was also more ambitious and had originally hoped to nominate in all six Taipei City districts. In a press conference when the GPT made its first round of nominations, it was clear the party was growing in confidence. Pan explained that the party was now much better known than four years earlier and the challenge now was to convince voters they would not be wasting their votes on the GPT, as its candidates could really win.20 Out of the individual campaigns in 2010, I will just focus on two. One district where the GPT should have had the best chances of winning a seat was Taipei City District 6. This had been Peng’s district in 1998 and was the one place the GPT had never been absent. This was Chang’s third election, and on the back of a better funded campaign, he should have managed to increase his vote total by more than 754 votes. Chang admitted that he could have done better. In addition to his admission that he was not crazy enough about campaigning, which I cited earlier regarding the 2006 campaign, he suggested a few factors for his limited progress. One was that he originally had not intended standing but joined to make up the numbers. Because Chang was GPT Secretary General at the time, he ‘had no time to campaign in the district itself.’21 Winkler’s understanding was more critical: I felt Hung-lin was one foot in and one foot keeping his options open. Not really committed. His performance. . . , no Chia-lun’s was the worst, she . . . that was expected but Hung-lin should have done much better. His performance was really not very good.22 Chang also noted that the party actually spent much less on District 6 than in 2006. But this again is problematic, as this should have been a district to prioritise spending due to its winnability. Moreover, if Chang really did not want to stand, then the GPT should have nominated another strong candidate to this priority seat. Another factor was failed social movement cooperation. Chang noted how in his district there was a candidate from the Raging Citizens called Wang Ping (王蘋). Given that Wang was one of the three openly gay candidates standing in 2010, it is likely that this undermined Chang, as ‘based on past experience those voters should be similar [to ours].’23 He felt that with those extra 1,000 votes, his campaign could have been much more competitive. It is unfortunate that despite cooperating together two years earlier, the GPT had not been able to avoid the two groups competing against each other in its strongest Taipei district. The rather chaotic campaign planning was apparent from future Co-Convenor Yang Chang-ling’s (楊長苓) comments. She recalled that in 2010, when she went to the GPT office to offer to join as a part-time volunteer, one of the first things that Chang said to her was to ask if she would like to stand for election that year. Yang

170  The Pan Han-sheng era was very surprised, saying, ‘but I was just a volunteer and he didn’t really know me, maybe just knew my background, like I was Pan Han-Sheng’s classmate.’24 Wang Chung-ming’s campaign in 2010 was the GPT’s highlight that year. Wang’s 8,321 votes were the highest GPT vote total since Peng’s in 1998. Wang himself explained that ‘for me 2010 was the most beautiful time in my life.’25 There were a number of elements that made Wang’s first campaign perhaps superior even to Peng’s. Like Peng, Wang was able to build up a strong campaign team, many of whom would stay for the next few campaigns. While Peng had only come to Taipei to study, Wang was a Tamsui local and so was also able to take advantage of local non-movement related networks. As had been the case in Peng’s 1998 campaign, Wang was not afraid to make the most of his appearance; as he explained, ‘another reason is I am pretty cute. I did try to take advantage of this.’26 Like many GPT candidates, a core component of his support was based on local social movement activism, and this helped him to gain media attention. In addition, Wang noted that, at least by GPT standards, he ran a well-funded campaign and a key reason for this was the support of the LGBT community, they helped me a lot in the campaigns. They donated a lot to my campaign. They were very generous. They thought we need someone to represent us. . . . So, I had more resources than the other GPT candidates that year. I was not quite like the typical GPT candidate that really lacked money in the campaign. We did have some limited funds to use. The first time I stood I spent over 1 million in the campaign. That is nothing compared to large parties but at the time it was hard for a small party candidate to raise that much funding.27 Wang did not have a LGBT rights movement record, and this was not a core issue of his campaign, as instead he focused much more on local environmental and planning issues. However, his candidacy was seen as symbolically important to many in the LGBT community, and this generated human and financial support. There were actually three openly gay candidates in 2010, but Wang Chung-ming’s campaign seemed most able to capture the media’s attention, while in contrast Song Chia-lun was the party’s worst performing candidate. Wang’s campaign had the typical GPT social movement appeals but was more competitive due to its superior support organisation and resources. This meant that while most GPT candidates have tended to rely on unreliable floating voters, Wang had a base of reliable iron voters. Wang also believed that one further factor in his relatively successful campaign was the geographical location. While the GPT had previously been very Taipei City-centred in its nomination, he believed that the market for alternative parties was best elsewhere, observing that the best chance for small parties was between cities and the countryside. We don’t have a chance in the big cities. As the big parties have more or less completed their generational change. So, there is nothing special about young faces, they have young faces and with higher education, cleaner images, more

The struggle to become a relevant party  171 beautiful packaging. You cannot compare with them. In the cities we can talk about softer issues, but so can others. But if you go to the real countryside, it’s no use. There it is too stable. So, our chance is in-between, so long as the generational transfer has not been completed.28 Wang had made this argument in a media interview during the 2010 campaign and believed that he was proved right when the Labor Party won its first seat in Hsinchu County in 2010 and then the GPT had its first breakthroughs in the Taoyuan and Hsinchu region in 2014.

Back to nationwide campaigning in 2012 Unlike four years earlier, in 2012 the GPT stood on its own, and therefore it adopted a much clearer GPT appeal. For instance, the election gazette text started with the call to ‘concentrate environmental protection votes on the GPT.’ The international Green appeal was used, as it is mentioned that the GPT was a founding member of the Global Greens. Readers are told that ‘if we are the first green party to enter national parliament in North East Asia, it will show the world Taiwan’s determination to change.’ Environmental concerns dominated the political proposals section, including details on dealing with nuclear power stations, organic farming and a series of environmental protection law proposals, such as a wetlands law and coastline law. In fact, in 2012 the GPT reused one of Peng Yenwen’s all-time favourite pieces of GPT propaganda, which featured the daughter of a GPT activist and the slogan ‘when I grow up I want to save the world with the GPT.’29 Written in a child’s handwriting, the four lines tell us the child’s environmental hopes and fears. It opens with the line, ‘the icebergs have disappeared, the polar bears have lost their home.’30 The final section on the gazette outlined ways to protect a diverse social culture, such as an anti-discrimination law, a law to protect co-habiting partners and calling to include animal protection in the constitution. It is interesting to note that the one issue that had by this stage become associated with the GPT, abolishing the death penalty, was not included here. Although not quite as central to the campaign as in 2010, GPT candidate Yu Wan-ju felt that the homosexuality issue was highlighted again in 2012. She believed that having Wang Chung-ming as a candidate who was very prominent in the media was critical in creating the image that the GPT-supported LGBT rights.31 This again received a response from the LGBT rights community, as the Taipei Times reported the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights recommended that voters back the DPP or the GPT. The Alliance’s recommendations were based on questionnaires that surveyed candidates on their views regarding civil partnership rights, homosexual marriage and the incorporation of education about homosexuality into school curricula. Wu Wei-ting (伍維婷), from the Alliance explained, ‘the Green Party also received our recommendation because it included our calls for greater civil partnership rights and homosexual marriage in its campaign platform.’32

172  The Pan Han-sheng era A number of videos were again released that were mainly to be shared on internet platforms, with one 57-second ad for free Central Election Commission TV time slots. The ad itself was far less creative than those from 2010. It essentially featured seven of the candidates speaking briefly to the camera. Six of the seven focused on environmental issues, with Yu’s discussion of her work on fair trade the one exception. In contrast, a number of much better produced videos featured the GPT’s party list candidate Sinan Mavivo (希婻‧瑪飛洑) and the issue of nuclear waste on Lanyu.33 One such ad shows the beauty of Lanyu and children swimming in the coral reefs, and this is contrasted with Sinan’s description of nuclear leaks at the waste facility and the story of a 5-year-old diagnosed with cancer. She also reminds viewers that this is not just about Lanyu, as the highestlevel nuclear waste is actually stored on the Taiwan mainland. Co-Convenor Yang Chang-ling saw both opportunities and challenges in the changing media environment for their campaign communication. For instance, she explained how they tried to invest more in the internet and social media, including activating their GPT Facebook page. However, she believed that unofficial internet campaigning still tended to be more effective. As Yang explained, One of our volunteers, Aduan, he made a great video to introduce the singlemember district and two-vote system and the party vote. Afterwards, we were invited to join some TV programmes to talk about the party vote – I think it’s more influential.34 She also noted that regular political talk shows tend to only invite GPT stars like Pan Han-sheng and Wang Chung-ming, while for the others, Public Television Service tended to be the main place where they could get exposure. Perhaps the most controversial element of the GPT’s 2012 campaign was Pan Han-sheng’s candidacy in Taipei City District 7, where the DPP did not nominate a candidate and instead supported Pan. This meant that this district’s campaign featured differences in the campaign appeals and strategies from earlier campaigns. What made this cooperation especially complicated was that on voting day in 2012, voters had three votes. They voted for a district candidate, their preferred party and the presidential candidate. In my interviews with members and party figures, one of the biggest challenges when campaigning had been to explain that the GPT is not the DPP or a branch of the DPP. Moreover, for many GPT supporters, one of the key things that attracted them was that it was different from mainstream parties. Although one of Pan’s campaigners, Hsiao Yuan (蕭遠), was generally positive about this cooperation, he did admit, ‘the negative side is that it blurred the image between the GPT and the DPP.’35 Yu also worried about how it would affect the perception of the GPT: ‘people will say you have had a political exchange and so feel you are no longer a clean party.’36 Hsiao explained how they tried to deal with this problem of blurred boundaries: ‘actually Pan Hansheng almost never said “a vote for Pan Han-sheng, a vote for Tsai Ing-wen.” He would say “support the anti-nuclear president, support the anti-nuclear legislator.” ’37 He also noted that when out campaigning on their own, they could call

The struggle to become a relevant party  173 for support for the GPT’s Pan Han-sheng, ‘but if we were out campaigning with DPP councilors, we could only call for support for Pan Han-sheng.’38 This comment reminded Yu Wan-ju of the difference between Pan’s campaign and the rest of the candidates, as ‘we were just fighting for the party list votes, so we just did not mention ourselves.’39 Pan’s campaign was innovative for the GPT in its combination of both new and more traditional campaigning methods. To use Rigger’s terminology it featured both the public and private face of the campaign (Rigger 1999). Hsiao Yuan and Chiu Ya-wen (邱雅雯) were both responsible for the internet side of the Pan campaign, part of the public face of the campaign. In this campaign, the use of Facebook overtook the importance of the blog. As Hsiao explained, ‘Facebook was more effective [than blogs], because on Facebook you can share, it has the share function, so can be linked to many different places.’40 One key resource that they employed for content was short videos of famous people in society or social movement organisations endorsing Pan. Chiu Ya-wen recalled how ‘by the week before the election, we discovered a lot of people on the internet were unsure about Han-sheng’s policies, so we recorded a seven minute video of Han-sheng’s policies and put it online.’41 According to Hsiao, Pan had originally planned to largely campaign from his office, but ‘later the DPP told him this way is not working.’42 Hsiao explained that Pan had expected the DPP to handle the campaigning on the ground. Of course, the DPP did employ its networks, but Pan had to make an effort on more traditional campaigning. In other words, a GPT candidate was thus engaging in the private face of the campaign. So, for instance, they introduced him to influential local people and told him what to say when out campaigning and the best places for campaigning. In short, as a result of the DPP’s support, this was the most traditional-style GPT campaign to date. To a large extent, the GPT’s campaign appeals in 2012 showed a high degree of continuity from those in the 2010 local elections. This is not surprising as there was also stability in the administrative model set up in 2010, and the overall composition of the 2010–11 Central Executive Committee was largely replicated in the 2011–12 term. However, what did change was the increase in inner-party disputes and personality clashes after the 2010 election. As Winkler recalled, ‘the problem was that there were some major rifts within the party at the time. I was probably responsible for Hung-lin leaving, and Ying-hsuan and I had a big blowout.’43 At times, bitter GPT disputes would be discussed in great detail on forums such as Cooloud.org. One such case was a piece written by a former party member and party worker titled, ‘A GPT Criminal’s Confession and Blood Tear Accusation’ (一個綠黨罪人的自白及血淚控訴).44

Understanding the GPT’s 2012 results While the GPT had long been on the margins of Taiwan’s party system, the national elections of 2012 suggested that the party had the potential to become a competitive actor. The party came fifth on the party list, beating the resource-rich NP, and one of its district candidates came second with 43,449 votes. This was

174  The Pan Han-sheng era the highest vote total ever received by a GPT candidate up to this point. However, despite its impressive growth in vote share and being the only alternative party, the GPT was not able to win any seats. There are three major puzzles from the 2012 election that need to be explained. Firstly, how can we best understand the GPT’s overall growth and its limitations? Secondly, what best explains Pan Han-sheng’s district performance? A third puzzle, that I will only deal with briefly, concerns the variation in the other district candidates’ performances. Party system factors Once again, this election was a wasted opportunity, as the GPT failed to fully take advantage of widespread dissatisfaction with mainstream parties. Instead, most of the protest votes went back to revived splinter parties that had almost disappeared in recent elections, such as the TSU and PFP. The overall political and civil society environment during the 2012 campaign was quite different from four years earlier. The environmental movement was enjoying a clear revival and it had won an important victory with the government backing down on the proposed Kuokuang petrochemical plant in Changhua in April 2011 (Grano 2015, 92–117). Similarly, the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011 brought the nuclear energy issue firmly back onto the political agenda (Grano 2015, 73–80). At least on the nuclear issue, the main parties made some adjustments that verge on being accommodative. The DPP included a nuclear-free homeland in its platform. But since its betrayal of the movement in 2001 was still fresh in activist’s memories, it could not reclaim its former position in the antinuclear movement. Even the KMT needed to respond to the nuclear crisis. While Ma insisted the Fourth Nuclear Power Station would be completed, he did declare that the other older three plants would be phased out. The Tsai-led DPP did make limited attempts to rebuild ties with civil society. However, Ho and Huang note that social movement groups criticised the DPP for only nominating two activists on its party list in 2012 (2017, 358). An important accommodative DPP move was the agreement with the GPT’s Secretary General Pan Han-sheng to allow him to run against the KMT in Taipei City District 7 with DPP support. I will come back to this controversial case when discussing both the overall GPT performance in 2012, as well as analysing Pan’s district campaign. In 2012, there was a more coordinated attempt by the small splinter parties to re-enter the party system. From the GPT’s perspective, the biggest challenge came from a revived TSU, which managed to get almost 9  percent and thus probably took away some potential GPT voters. After most of its politicians were poached by the KMT between 2005 and 2010, the PFP attempted to reassert its autonomy by once again running a legislative and presidential campaign in 2012. Previously Pan Blue splinter parties had not threatened the GPT’s support. However, this PFP campaign posed a challenge for the GPT for two reasons. Firstly, unlike in the past, it focused its attacks on the ruling KMT rather

The struggle to become a relevant party  175 than the DPP. The second reason concerned the PFP’s nomination of wellknown writer Chang Hsiao-feng (張曉風) as the second placed person on its party list. In 2010–11, Chang had become associated with some environmental protests in Taipei, and so the GPT asked if she would be interested in standing for the party, but she told them she did not want to enter politics.45 However, later she changed her mind and joined the PFP’s party list. A further challenge the GPT faced was from a brand-new single issue appeal group known as the National Health System Alliance (literally Free National Health Insurance Alliance 健保免費連線). Although this was essentially an empty party with only a single appeal, it managed to get 1.2 percent of the party list vote. GPT CoConvenor Yang Chang Ling recalled that it was harder to make the GPT’s TV ad as each candidate could only say a sentence, but ‘the NHI Alliance only had one demand. NHI should be free. That was all they needed to have in their ad. They did pretty well in the election.’46 The GPT agency in its 2012 campaign The GPT leadership had hoped to build on the sense of momentum generated by the 2010 local elections to prepare for the January 2012 national elections. In March 2011, the party held a planning consensus-seeking away day. Co-Convenor Winkler described that then we kept saying we’re going to do our timetable for 2012, when are we going to get our candidates, when are we going to do this. We were going to have a consensus building retreat. . . . We’ve reorganized and we go down and have two and a half days at [Hsu] Wen-yen’s parent’s, the old homestead. An hour and a half from Taipei. It was great. It was Han-sheng, Yung-mei, her girlfriend Elza, Wen-yen; Aduan was out of the picture by then. I remember a couple of people came maybe just for a day. So it was six or seven core people. Han-sheng, Yung-mei, Elza, Wen-yen, Chia-lun, me and Chung-ming, so seven. We had a pretty good time. It was pretty productive. We had a big white sheet of paper. What are going to be the issues and who’s going to be doing what? How are we going to get candidates? Setting some dates and so forth.47 However, the problem was that key deadlines were not followed up on, and by the summer the party was struggling to find candidates. The other Co-Convenor, Yang, explained that at the time it felt too rushed. The elections are in December, how can you not have the candidates in August? So I participated actively from August. I discovered how hard people were working to find candidates. Often a group of us would visit people to persuade people. We would write names on the blackboard but kept being rejected. It was hard to persuade people.48

176  The Pan Han-sheng era This meant that the GPT would again suffer from last-minute candidate nominations. The nomination of Chang Yu-ching was one such case. Chang recalled how in the 2011 summer holidays Pan and his administrative team had come to see her to ask whether she would stand for the GPT in January 2012. They had first met her at a Kuokuang protest but barely knew her. She was shocked that they would ask a housewife like her to stand and did not take them seriously. However, in October, Winkler approached her again and explained that they would handle the financial side and they just needed her name so they could have the required ten candidates needed for the party list. Chang had long admired Winkler’s environmental campaigning and so was persuaded to stand with just over two months to go before the election.49 One feature of the GPT’s 2012 campaign that does seem to have paid dividends was its nomination of Sinan Mavivo on the party list. Since she is a single mother and anti-nuclear activist, this enabled the party to highlight nuclear, gender and Indigenous issues. Sinan gave an island-wide lecture tour, which according to Yang ‘really helped to boost the GPT’s party list votes. It had a clear theme of opposition to nuclear waste.’50 There was a similar effect with the second nomination of Wang Chung-ming; as Yu explained, ‘after he joined the GPT, LGBT issues have received more attention. But he is one of the more influential and visible people, so some ask are you just a LGBT party?’51 Nevertheless, there were also clearly problems in the GPT’s official campaign and its support for the district candidates. In theory, Secretary General Huang Yung-mei and her team were handling propaganda and campaign support. But, according to Yang, it was not working. She recalled how their Taichung candidate Tsai Chi-hao (蔡智豪) complained he had not received campaign vests or leaflets. She also noted that the official leaflets did not come out until December, so only a month before the election date. Yu and GPT Co-Convenor Yang Chang-ling were both very critical of the propaganda issued for this election. The leaflet was not only late coming out but also looked poor. Yu recalled how one of the photographs used in the flyer made a candidate look like a convict.52 Yang complained, ‘it was not a financial problem. It’s an attitude problem. They even got the districts wrong on the draft leaflets! This is unbelievable. Among the 12, two had the wrong district on the leaflet.’53 A number of interviewees were highly critical of the official TV ad, arguing that some of the camera angles made some candidates look very odd. Yu described it as ‘a disaster!’54 One GPT supporter complained to me that the ad made its most beautiful candidate look like a horse. Yang explained, ‘actually we said we could give it over to some professional groups but they said they would do this themselves.’55 In other words, though Yang was Co-Convenor, it is clear she was not working well with her administrative team. One aspect I was curious to delve into was the GPT’s internet campaigning, as the vote distribution showed the party gained support in many areas where it did not have an obvious presence on the ground. Yu also cited the internet effect, saying, ‘we have never been to this place but these people may know the GPT from the internet. When it comes to vote, they vote for us.’56 However, Yang and Yu

The struggle to become a relevant party  177 did not believe the official party website or social media presence should take the credit. They noted how they tried to create a new campaign website but ‘in the end it was another disaster.’57 There just was not enough content generation. Although the GPT would later develop the reputation as a leading internet campaigning party, it was still struggling at this stage. As Yang explained, the GPT is very conservative when it comes to the internet work. We cannot be sure who will be responsible for this. I do not dare to take on this myself, as I know there are so many things to deal with. You have to respond to other people’s attacks. No one dares take this on.58 In our focus group discussions, a number of participants felt that the GPT’s large increase in its vote share was partly down to luck, particularly due to the growing strength of civil society. As district candidate Tsai Chi-hao explained, the grassroots civil society groups have had operations for the past 10 or more years, the reason the GPT got so many votes is thanks to the support of civil society groups, it’s not due to the hard work of the GPT. The GPT is here because it gives people a third choice, it’s not because the GPT is so great.59 However, some focus group participants noted that even environmental groups were often wary of being too closely associated with the GPT. In 2012, the GPT remained the only movement party, and that allowed it to take advantage of the many people who felt alienated from the mainstream parties. But Hsu Wen-yen also believed that the GPT should not be congratulating itself and made a very accurate prediction about future competition, observing, we spent NT$2 million in candidate registration fees to allow us to be able to be voted for. So I think in the past five years, what’s most unfortunate about the GPT is that despite our efforts to change society, our success comes from the fact that we’re simply a group that’s on the ballot. Passive success. We don’t have a deep relationship with the population, so I feel it’s very likely that we can be replaced by another group.60 One of the most controversial issues in 2012 was the Pan campaign; I  will discuss it from the district perspective later, but first it is important to consider the impact of the agreement on the overall GPT campaign. Naturally, Pan and Winkler had hoped that it would provide a boost to the GPT’s party list vote. Party founder Kao Cheng-yan’s view was that ‘I feel there were more pros than cons.’61 Among those that joined the 2012 GPT focus groups, the two that spoke most positively on the Pan case were his campaign team members, Hsiao Yuan and Chiu Ya-wen. Hsiao noted that ‘it led to a very large amount of media reports on the GPT, I feel that this is something ignored in the GPT.’62 In addition, they argued that the DPP taught Pan a lot about how to campaign. Unfortunately, however, Pan was unable to fully share what he learnt. As discussed in Chapter 3, the

178  The Pan Han-sheng era new GPT was not interested in his campaign planning ideas in 2014, and so he split off instead to form the Trees Party. A number of respondents particularly highlighted the impact of a campaign event where the DPP rally host shouted, ‘vote for Pan Han-sheng, party list vote for the DPP.’ Lai Fen-lan was angry that Pan did not take the microphone and correct him. In the focus group, she said directly to Pan, ‘this is what I was most disappointed in you about.’63 Chang Yu-ching and many of the other candidates were at the rally. On hearing the slogan, she and her young daughters were dumbstruck and had to leave the rally. She recalled, ‘at the time I was hurt and sad and then became angry.’64 As soon as she got home, she wrote an open letter demanding that Pan Han-sheng quit the election. One of the GPT’s team immediately emailed her and came to see her the next morning. Chang was eventually persuaded that, for the sake of the GPT’s party list vote, she should continue campaigning. However, she believed that the incident was extremely damaging to the party’s reputation and that without this, ‘the party list vote would have been much higher.’65 The way the agreement between Pan and the DPP was made also created severe internal divisions that undermined the 2012 campaign. As Yang explained, ‘I do not think we cannot cooperate with the DPP and other parties if the ideals are the same, for instance, opposing nuclear power. But you cannot negotiate privately, you have to make ​​it transparent.’66 This was also cited in party member Huang Tzu-an’s (黃子安) resignation essay. He reminded readers that at the GPT’s March  2011 consensus-seeking conference, it had been agreed they would not endorse a presidential candidate and that this had been formally been acknowledged by the Central Executive Committee in July  2011.67 Many interviewees noted how hard they had had to work to remove the common perception that the GPT is part of the DPP, and so they felt that the alliance with the DPP in that district again blurred the divide and so undermined their earlier efforts. One visible impact of the Pan–DPP pact was that Secretary General Huang Yung-mei and Song Chia-lun abandoned the Taipei headquarters and instead relocated to Kaohsiung to help the candidate there, Lin Chen-yang ( 林震洋 ). As Winkler explained, they sort of went off on their own and then came back to the GPT, and sued us for back pay; it was just a real mess. And part of what set it off was their disappointment with that Han-sheng appeared to make this deal with the DPP. Then the straw that broke the camel’s back was when I went on Facebook and encouraged people to vote for Tsai Ing-wen. People kind of flipped out over that.68 Perhaps the most extreme criticism of the damaging nature of the Pan case came from Tsai Chi-hao, who argued that since the DPP had also been penetrated by the CCP, so would the GPT. Looking ahead, he warned, ‘if you are thinking about the next election, whether or not to cooperate with the DPP then that’s too shallow, you fundamentally do not know where the enemy is and how you are going to fight the battle.’69 Almost a year after the 2012 election, there was still widespread

The struggle to become a relevant party  179 anger in the party about Pan’s campaign in the December 17 focus group, and it was clear that Pan was badly hurt by these attacks. Individual campaigns From Table 4.4, we can see that in addition to a large increase in the GPT’s party list vote share, there was also a significant improvement in its district candidates’ performances in 2012. Pan divided those campaigning into three categories: those campaigning seriously, medium-level campaigning and those with almost no campaign events (2012, 77). He believed that the top two district vote getters, Wang Chung-ming and Yang Mu-wan, benefitted from long-term operating in their districts. Yang is a rather exceptional figure in the GPT, as he had a long record of involvement in local politics, having served as Tucheng township representative for five terms. When I spoke to Wang about the 2012 campaign, he was much less enthusiastic about that experience. He explained how campaigning and fundraising were so much harder in this election; in contrast to the city council election, people knew he could not win.70 One of the most interesting district performances was that of Chang Yu-ching, who despite only starting her campaign very late was the third highest vote winner with 4,733 votes in Taipei City District 1. Moreover, she had no financial resources and was in fact in debt at the time. Her husband did not support her campaign, and her campaign team consisted of her two young daughters, one in primary school and one in kindergarten. No wonder she said that ‘that time of just over two months completely changed my life.’71 Listening to Chang describe her campaign left me deeply moved and full of admiration. She had to continue her regular duties as a wife and mother during her campaign and told me how she could only sleep an hour or two a night. On one occasion while out campaigning, she collapsed through exhaustion on the street. Her short campaign went through three stages. The first was researching the district, which was especially challenging as this was not where she lived and had her existing networks. Her key focus was on where the GPT support rate had been higher in the past. The second stage involved going to visit NGOs and social movement leaders in the district. One such figure was the environmentalist Jay Fang, who had almost founded the GPT in 1995. Unfortunately, he was not especially encouraging. Chang recalled their meeting, saying, ‘at the time he was shaking my hand and did not let go, he kept laughing and asked if I was ready for being cannon fodder?’72 The majority of her campaign was in the third stage, which centred on meeting voters. This mainly involved walking on the streets with her daughters and giving out leaflets and talking to voters, if they would listen to her. This made her very different from the other candidates and gave her something distinctive. On giving out a leaflet, one of her daughters told her, ‘ “You should thank me!” I asked why? She said that uncle said to tell your mother, “I am voting for your mother because of you.” ’73 Her daughters also helped her to draw the pictures for her election leaflets, as they had no money to get them properly designed, and of course the

180  The Pan Han-sheng era official GPT leaflets were behind schedule.74 What made their support even more impressive was that her daughters needed to come by public transport to Chang’s campaign headquarters on their own after school. Chang truly threw herself into the campaign with the kind of enthusiasm that often GPT candidates lacked. This was apparent as one of her daughters had complained to her neighbour, saying, ‘my mother asks everyone for votes except dogs.’75 Later one of the party workers, Wu Min-hsuan, gave her some advice of how to give short speeches. So she added giving short speeches outside metro stations to her repertoire. While speaking, one daughter would give out leaflets and another carried the donation box. Listening to Chang’s story left me with the conclusion that her daughters were an integral part of the campaign and left me full of admiration for their dedication. A  question that I  often discuss with my students is whether campaigns matter. That Chang, despite all her disadvantages, was the third highest GPT district vote winner (excluding Pan) tells me that the quality of the campaign does make a difference.

The Pan Han-sheng campaign Pan Han-sheng received 24 percent of the vote and 43,449 votes in Taipei City District 7. This made him the best performing GPT candidate up to that point. However, both he and the DPP were disappointed by the outcome. Pan commented that ‘cooperating with the DPP wasn’t a happy experience.’76 Pan’s vote share was well below that of the DPP candidate in 2008 (31.85%), despite the fact that the DPP was much more popular in 2012. It was instead the KMT incumbent who increased his vote by almost 20,000. So what explains this disappointing result? For Pan to win or even to be competitive, he needed the support of four groups of voters. The most important, of course, were the DPP supporters that made up about a third of the constituency. As a GPT candidate, he needed to win and ideally expand the party’s vote base there, not only for the party list vote but also for the next round of city council elections in 2014. There was also potential for him to win non-partisan floating votes, which might have been more willing to support him than a regular DPP candidate. To win, though, he would also need some light blue voters to vote for him. Even this was not entirely unimaginable, as his KMT rival was a former NP politician that can be put in the category of a deep blue politician. The first place to understand Pan’s performance is the GPT’s partner, the DPP. Here the picture was not promising, as not all of the DPP local party supported the deal with Pan. Former DPP Taipei City Councillor Chen Shu-hua (陳淑華) had been hoping to promote her son Li Chun-ting (黎俊廷) as the official candidate.77 She felt that the party should not abandon a district where they had a support base of about one-third of voters.78 In the end, Li stood as an independent but had a very clear DPP appeal to his campaign. Chen was his campaign manager; his leaflets and billboards called for support for Tsai Ing-wen, and he branded himself as the ‘DPP’s new generation.’79 This was quite an effective method for many

The struggle to become a relevant party  181 traditional DPP supporters, as Pan could not call for voters to give their party vote to the DPP, and he generally only implicitly supported Tsai. In fact, Pan wrote on his blog that Chen Shu-hua had told him directly that ‘we are standing for election because you are not supporting Tsai Ing-wen.’80 According to Hsiao Yuan, the DPP gave Pan critical support that enabled him to achieve a vote share previously unimaginable for the GPT. This included teaching him how to campaign, giving information about the constituency, introducing him to local clients, accompanying him out campaigning and inviting him to rallies.81 Hsiao also believed that a benefit of the alliance was that it gave Pan’s media visibility a major boost. He recalled, from what I’ve seen in this last election, there were reports on Pan Hansheng nearly every day in the Liberty Times, the China Times and United Daily News. Not only every day but sometimes two or three times in one day. I think the media today focuses on the showdown between two parties, on the point of conflict.82 This kind of media angle could not be seen in the other GPT district candidates, as they were generally seen by the media as too marginal. Nevertheless, there was often tension between Pan and his DPP allies. Hsiao highlighted two points of contention. The first was that Pan never openly called for voters to support the DPP’s presidential candidate, and the second was his refusal to have the DPP party banner hung outside his campaign headquarters. According to Hsiao, ‘at first, Pan never went to DPP rallies, never visited DPP clients, and never canvassed with the company of DPP politicians’ (Hsiao 2013, 13). Hsiao even recalled that ‘there were rumours that there was a traitor amongst us [in the office], the DPP had sent someone to spy on Pan Han-sheng.’83 Later in the campaign, Pan decided he needed to adjust this strategy and started to campaign more closely with the DPP. Hsiao noted that this had a significant effect, as when Pan canvassed streets without the company of DPP politicians, people were less welcome of him. On the contrary, when DPP politicians, especially prominent ones such as Tsai, appeared, people were much more willing to interact with Pan. They shook hands as well as listened to Pan’s anti-nuclear point of view. (Hsiao 2013, 11–12) This meant that Pan had two very distinct campaigns. While on the ground he was operating as a semi-DPP candidate, his online campaign was framed much more clearly as a GPT candidate. As discussed earlier, his alliance with the DPP led to a serious backlash among GPT activists and supporters. Hsiao noted how ‘Pan received calls claiming they were GPT members outraged with Pan’s intimate relationship with the DPP’ (Hsiao 2013, 16). Such voters did not really have any

182  The Pan Han-sheng era alternative candidates in the district. More damaging, though, would have been the effect on potential floating voters or light blue voters. As Hsiao explained, ironically, this adjusting made other voters disappointed. For instance, when Pan canvassed with DPP politicians a few weeks before the day of voting, Pan kept encountering citizens telling him that people in the community already knew the DPP supported Pan. They complained that Pan’s close relationship with the DPP angered citizens who hated the DPP and asked Pan to move away from the DPP. (Hsiao 2013, 13) In addition to the relative lack of resources compared to his KMT rival, there were other serious weaknesses in Pan’s campaign. Hsiao noted that the campaign team was very weakly organised. He highlighted the problems of communication within Pan’s campaign office, arguing that meeting decisions were frequently not implemented. Hsiao cited an example of a planned concert, but in the end it never materialised.84 A number of respondents also highlighted that Pan was not especially good at communicating with voters, with Hsiao, for instance, noting he does not have the passion often seen in regular politicians and instead describing him as ‘more like a scholar.’85 Although Pan was the most experienced GPT candidate, a number of interviewees highlighted fundamental flaws in his campaign. For instance, Hsiao recalled, ‘I discovered Han-sheng did not actually know the Hsinyi district very well!’86 After the campaign, Pan wrote on his blog that ‘the GPT and social movement activists that join elections are unwilling to face the fact that our candidates are not hard working enough.’87 In the end, Pan’s campaign failed to be competitive. Naturally, problems in the campaign organisation played a role in this disappointing outcome. However, what was more important was that the campaign positioning ended up alienating parts of all four of his target voter groups. His attempt to keep a distance from the DPP meant he was unable to hold on to the DPP support base. However, the open alliance with the DPP not only angered GPT supporters, but also made it harder for non-partisans and impossible for light blues to vote for Pan. After this experience, though press reports mentioned it was a possibility, the DPP decided not to work with Pan in the next round of national elections in 2016 and preferred to back a KMT defector.88

Conclusions Although Pan Han-sheng was only the convenor for one term (2010–11), the period between 2006 and 2012 is often associated with him. He was a candidate four times, served as party spokesperson and was by far the most visible GPT figure in the media. Although by 2012 the GPT had not yet won local or national seats, it had enjoyed impressive growth rates in its vote shares at both levels. By beating the well-funded NP in the party list and coming fifth in 2012, it appeared the GPT was on the road to finally making its electoral breakthrough.

The struggle to become a relevant party  183 The focus of this chapter was to show patterns of party change but also to explain the GPT’s electoral performances. The GPT had a number of severe weaknesses that held it back. There were, as we saw in 2012, serious problems in the way the party operated and delivered its publicity. Pan’s reforms, which were designed to professionalise the party, ultimately failed. The party also suffered from growing internal conflict. This was best exemplified by the way two members of the core executive team deserted the party during the 2012 campaign and then sued the party for backpay after the election. A further challenge was the lack of consensus on how to manage the relationship with the DPP, something that had torn the party apart in 2012. The GPT was still struggling to find the right balance between vote maximisation and adhering to its core party values. The GPT had benefitted from the fact that it was the sole alternative party in this period; however, this status would soon be challenged. The 2012 election marks the end of the Pan Han-sheng era, as he increasingly became marginalised in the party. Subsequently, Lee Kencheng and his new leadership team attempted to introduce reforms to make the GPT a more professional and competitive party. Understanding the impact of the new party model of operation will be the subject of my next chapter.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df-PNZ2DRPY. PTS News Report, www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8du6-l8bu0. Wang Chung-ming, 14 September 2018. Ibid. http://gptaiwan.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_8348.html. Robin Winkler, 27 July 2013. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gyusbsngywc. Andrew Huang, ‘Across the Spectrum,’ Taipei Times, 25 November 2010, 13. Ibid. Ibid. Wang Chung-ming, 14 September 2018. Ibid. Hsu Hui-ting, GPT Taipei Member Focus Group, 5 January 2014. Yu Wan-ju, 20 December 2012. Robin Winkler, 27 July 2013. Yu Wan-ju, 20 December 2012. Aduan is the nickname for Wu Min-hsuan, who first featured in Chapter 3. Robin Winkler, 27 July 2013. Ibid. www.civilmedia.tw/archives/4625. Chang Hung-lin, 20 December 2012. Robin Winkler, 27 July 2013. Chang Hung-lin, 20 December 2012. Yang Chang-ling, 20 December 2012. Wang Chung-ming, 14 September 2018. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. http://gptaiwan.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html. This had first been used in leaflet form in the 2008 campaign.

184  The Pan Han-sheng era 30 http://gptaiwan.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html. 31 Yu Wan-ju, 20 December 2012. 32 Taipei Times Staff Writer, ‘2012 ELECTIONS: FEATURE: Rights Groups Endorse DPP and Green Party Candidates,’ Taipei Times, 4 January 2012, 4. 33 www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=122&v=rwvZl_oPE14&feature=emb_logo. 34 Yang Chang-ling, 20 December 2012. 35 Hsiao Yuan, 20 December 2012. 36 Yu Wan-ju, 20 December 2012. 37 Hsiao Yuan, 20 December 2012. 38 Ibid. 39 Yu Wan-ju, 20 December 2012. 40 Hsiao Yuan, 20 December 2012. 41 Chiu Ya-wen, 20 December 2012. 42 Hsiao Yuan, 20 December 2012. 43 Robin Winkler, 27 July 2013. 44 www.coolloud.org.tw/node/57070. 45 Yang Chang-ling, 20 December 2012. 46 Ibid. 47 Robin Winkler, 27 July 2013. 48 Yang Chang-ling, 20 December 2012. 49 Chang Yu-ching, 27 December 2014. 50 Yang Chang-ling, 20 December 2012. 51 Yu Wan-ju, 20 December 2012. 52 Ibid. 53 Yang Chang-ling, 20 December 2012. 54 Yu Wan-ju, 20 December 2012. 55 Yang Chang-ling, 20 December 2012. 56 Yu Wan-ju, 20 December 2012. 57 Yang Chang-ling, 20 December 2012. 58 Ibid. 59 Tsai Chi-hao, 17 December 2012. 60 Hsu Wen-yan, 17 December 2012. 61 Kao Cheng-yan, 26 December 2014. 62 Hsiao Yuan, 20 December 2012. 63 Lai Fen-lan, 17 December 2012. 64 Chang Yu-ching, 27 December 2014. 65 Ibid. 66 Yang Chang-ling, 20 December 2012. 67 www.coolloud.org.tw/node/67145. 68 Robin Winkler, 27 July 2013. 69 Tsai Chi-hao, 17 December 2012. 70 Wang Chung-ming, 14 September 2018. 71 Chang Yu-ching, 27 December 2014. 72 Ibid. 73 Ibid. 74 http://gogo-mother.blogspot.com/2011/12/blog-post_18.html. 75 Chang Yu-ching, 27 December 2014. 76 Pan Han-sheng, 17 December 2012. 77 Fans of Taiwanese music should note this is not the same Chen Shu-hua (Sarah Chen) whose album Talk to You, Listen to You was the first to exceed one million sales in 1989. 78 http://iservice.ltn.com.tw/2012/specials/election/cont.php?nt=0&pt=90&type=a &no=548506.

The struggle to become a relevant party  185 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88

http://surftony.blogspot.com/. https://panhan3.pixnet.net/blog/post/36979270. Hsiao Yuan, 20 December 2012. Ibid. Ibid. Hsiao Yuan, 17 December 2012. Ibid. Hsiao Yuan, 20 December 2012. https://panhan3.pixnet.net/blog/post/36979270. UDN Evening News, 18 June 2015, A4.

References Grano, Simona. 2015. Environmental Governance in Taiwan. London: Routledge. Ho, Ming-sho and Chun-hao Huang. 2017. ‘Movement Parties in Taiwan, 1987–2016.’ Asian Survey, 57(2): 343–367. Hsiao, Yuan. 2013. ‘Flexible Framings in Campaigns: A Frame Analysis of How a Green Party Candidate Strived to Target His Audience.’ Unpublished paper. Pan, Han-sheng. 2012. 綠黨跨越門檻的最後一階 2012選舉結果探討與2016路線展 望 (The Last Step for the GPT to Cross the Threshold: Analysis of the 2012 Election Results and Prospects for 2016) 生態臺灣 (Ecology Taiwan), (35): 73–80. Rigger, Shelley. 1999. Politics in Taiwan: Voting for Democracy. London: Routledge. Song, Hung-kuang (宋竑廣). 2011. 綠黨尋找同志候選人的策略 (GPT’s Strategy to Seek Out LGBT Candidates). 性別平等教育季刊 (Journal of Gender Equality Education), 54期 (2011/07/01): 75–77. Weng, Hui-chen and Dafydd Fell. 2006. ‘The Rootless Movement: Taiwan’s Women’s Movement.’ In Dafydd Fell, Bi-Yu Chang, and Henning Klöter (eds.),  What Has Changed? Taiwan’s KMT and DPP Eras in Comparative Perspective. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 147–164.

Part V

The Lee Ken-cheng era 2013–2016

11 Reforms and the local breakthroughs and setbacks of 2014 Unfinished progress

Transition from the Pan to Lee eras Very early on in Lee Ken-cheng’s term as GPT Co-Convenor, it was apparent that his vision for the party was starkly different to that seen in the Pan era. Initially, it appeared that Lee’s reforms were transforming it into an institutionalised party for the first time. The first test for the new GPT and its splinter, the Trees Party, came in the 2014 local elections. Both had mixed fortunes, experiencing breakthroughs and setbacks. In the first section of the chapter, I will introduce the transition process between the Pan and Lee eras, and new mode of party operation that evolved after Lee became Co-Convenor in 2013. I  then will outline the GPT’s 2014 campaign appeals and strategies. I argue that the party change in this period can be explained by both new leadership and changes in the inner party balance of power. Next, I  attempt to explain the GPT and Trees Party’s local election performances of 2014, looking at both their overall campaigns as well as some representative individual candidates. When I conducted the first GPT focus groups in December 2012, there was little indication that the party was on the verge of its long-awaited breakthrough. In January 2012, it achieved its best ever national election results and successfully participated in the Global Greens Congress in Senegal from March to April 2012. However, rather than building on this momentum, the party appeared to be struggling to deal with the aftermath of the election period’s bitter disputes. In December 2012, Co-Convenor Yu Wan-ju explained that ‘actually from the last election the only people who continued working are Pan Han-sheng and myself, the other people disappeared.’1 One of the shadows cast over the party was the labour dispute between it and the party’s former Secretary General, Huang Yungmei, and Planning Department Director, Song Chia-lun. In her Facebook post, Song describes how they were fired in a ‘majority violence meeting’ in which the decision was based on a Central Executive Committee vote of five to three.2 Peng Yen-wen described the outcome, saying, ‘they went to the Labour Bureau to sue the GPT. This was very damaging for the GPT’s reputation and damaged Pan Han-sheng. They used Facebook to attack [the GPT for] exploiting young people.’3 That a party centred on human rights was being accused of violating

190  The Lee Ken-cheng era the labour rights of its employees was very damaging. In addition, the extensive criticism of Pan Han-sheng at the focus groups in December 2012 revealed the depth of feeling against his collaboration with the DPP in the 2012 campaign. Pan was clearly hurt by these attacks, and in his last comments at the focus group, he explained, ‘I won’t run for the Central Executive Committee next term, I decided that many months ago . . . so there is no need for everyone to make those kinds of attacks and discussions.’4 At this point, Yu was clearly finding being Co-Convenor challenging, as she was constantly tied down with trivial matters. She summed up her experience, saying, I’d like to share that in this year of being on the Central Executive Committee, I often feel that everyone doesn’t see what we’re doing, but actually I’m often resolving many member’s requests or issues or communication and haven’t even begun to make any positive social change.5 One reason for the low spirits in the GPT at the time was that there were plans for a rival movement party. In fact, in the December 2012 GPT focus group, Tsai Chi-hao told the other participants that there was a new political party being formed and that ‘as soon as it registers as a political party, they’ll be no space for the GPT.’6 Tsai was correct that the founder of the Citizen of the Earth Foundation, Lee Ken-cheng, wanted to form a new political party. Even though Lee had been supportive of the GPT and served on its Central Executive Committee in the 2006 term, he had been largely preoccupied with building up his own NGO over the previous decade and a half. Moreover, he had a very negative impression of the way the party had been run. When I asked him the biggest problems, he stated that ‘the whole party operation was a mess.’7 Fellow Central Executive Committee member Chiu Hua-mei, however, helped persuade him to instead try to reform the GPT. She felt that it would be hard to convince people of the need for another environmental party and that the GPT had the advantage of international recognition through being a member of the Global Greens.8 Lee also noted that despite all the GPT’s problems, it was an openly structured party, so it would be possible to enter the party and try to reform it.9 The Central Executive Committee election for the 2013–15 term brought about a radical shift in the composition of the party’s leadership. Only Yu Wan-ju and Sinan Mavivo remained from the 2012–13 committee. Lee and a number of his close associates, such as Chiu Hua-mei and Liao Pen-chuan (廖本全), were elected to the Central Executive Committee. There was therefore enough support for Lee to be elected as Co-Convenor. When I spoke to Yu in the summer of 2013, it was clear that the party culture was being radically transformed. Although Lee and Yu were Co-Convenors, the interview suggested he was already the more dominant figure in party affairs. When I asked Yu how the Lee-led GPT was different, she replied, ‘or it is more like that he does not care what happened in the past. He just wants things to be done his way after joining the party.’10 I recall how surprised I was when I returned to Taiwan in the summer of 2014 and did not see Yu at a major GPT campaign event. Later, after she had switched to the DPP, Yu

Reforms, local breakthroughs and setbacks  191 confirmed she had quickly become marginalised in the party’s operations: ‘after Lee had become the Convenor, I stopped participating in the party. It was because he skillfully forced me out of the party’s affairs. To put it nicely, he wanted to control the party all by himself.’11 Although Lee decided not to form a new political party in the end, the result by the time Taiwan started its next election campaign in 2014 was a radically different GPT from that of the Pan era. Chiu summed up Lee’s role in the party reforms, saying, He has worked behind the scenes in organizing meetings, dealing with human resources, visiting groups we would like to integrate with and seeking financial support. For party politics, these are the things a party coordinator should concentrate on. By doing so it is probably more effective than calling for meetings with journalists to gain publicity. This kind of organization isn’t as visible and it is very time consuming. Lee has done the lion’s share of this organizational work.12 There were a number of core elements to the GPT’s new style of operation. At the core of the changes was Lee’s belief in ‘establishing a good organizational culture that would allow the GPT to enjoy stable development.’13 Here the degree of change was very visible, as the party went from one to five full-time staff members. For Lee, it was especially important that those involved in the party’s organisational work would have work experience in the social movement sector.14 The party was also able to move its Taipei headquarters to a larger office space. To make this possible, of course, required Lee to deal with the GPT’s perennial weakness in raising funds. Chiu Hua-mei recalled that when we first joined and reviewed the party’s finances, we noticed it still owed some people money. Messy financial records, such as some money was classified as a donation but later we found out it was a loan from someone. All these showed that the previous operation was too haphazard.15 When I raised the question of financial resources, Lee explained how they were trying to make fundraising more institutionalised. He noted that they had established an online system for regular donations. However, he still felt this was an area that needed to be improved and to be more institutionalised.16 Another key theme of the Lee reforms was what he termed putting down roots (扎根). One way this was operationalised was the establishment of active local party branches. The period saw branches established in Kaohsiung, Tainan, Greater Taipei and the Hsinchu/Taoyuan region. This local presence would play an important role in the build up to subsequent election campaigns and allowed the party to move beyond just relying on winning floating voters. The most radical of Lee’s organisational reforms, however, was the introduction of a genuine nomination system. Firstly, candidates needed to be able to show they actually had strong local roots, so an initial threshold to cross was 1 percent

192  The Lee Ken-cheng era of voters in a district’s signatures. A second threshold was to receive the endorsement of a local civil society group, to make sure candidates had a record of social movement participation and to improve party–movement relations. The third element of the nomination reform was revision to the candidate’s political representative agreement. In addition to requiring elected candidates to donate a third of their salaries to the party, it required financial transparency, for candidates to abide by the GPT’s core values and to maintain regular communication with voters and civil society groups. Lee used the nomination reform to enhance two core goals of setting down roots and enhancing GPT-movement relations. As discussed in Chapter 3, there were objections to the new nomination system. However, Lee and Chiu believed this would allow the party to make a break from damaging past practices of nomination. As Chiu explained, some people would think even if we asked people to represent the GPT for the election, people might not want to come forward. Now you are setting restrictions which will only deter people even more. But we think we only want serious candidates who are prepared to continuously work on their election districts even if they lose the first time. Not like every time we have different candidates for different elections.17 One of the consequences of Lee’s reforms was that, initially, the GPT was less visible in the media than in the Pan era. Yu described the new style of operation, saying, I feel it used to be a more open party. Whenever Pan Han-sheng or Wang Chung-ming decided to do something, they could do it under the GPT’s name. Lee has a different take on this. He thinks that if the GPT has not being involved for a long time, he feels we should not suddenly say this is a GPT issue or activity. The GPT should focus on issues it has been involved in for a long period of time. For unfamiliar topics, he does not suggest GPT members get involved. It sometimes seemed that he would cover up or hide our activities and wants us to keep a low profile.18 In other words, Lee disagreed with Pan’s style of focusing on media visibility, believing this did not benefit the party electorally and had damaged the party’s reputation in social movement circles. One realm where we can see the different way the GPT dealt with issues concerned the debates in 2013 over a referendum on the Fourth Nuclear Power Station (Grano 2015, 83–87). The GPT had long called for a national referendum on the plant. However, in late February 2013, the KMT surprised many observers when its premier called for a referendum to be held to resolve the disputed project. What was perhaps even more surprising was that the GPT did not seem to be taking an active part in the referendum controversy. When I raised the issue with the Co-Convenor Yu Wan-ju in August 2013, she explained that the party had not been focusing on this or mobilising and instead had decided to leave it to

Reforms, local breakthroughs and setbacks  193 environmental protection groups.19 Given that GPT party founder Kao Cheng-yan had often said that what the GPT most needs to grow is a nationwide environmental referendum, I was curious to see how he viewed the lack of interest in the proposed referendum in 2013. He recalled that he had encouraged the GPT to engage with the proposal but they disagreed. Kao could not understand why.20

The first campaign in the Lee Ken-cheng era: the local elections of 2014 The 2014 local elections were the first in the Lee Ken-cheng era. The GPT’s campaign was very different from four years earlier. It was better funded and more professionally organised; the nomination was more extensive in terms both of the numbers of candidates and geographically. Moreover, the focal point of political communication had shifted to the internet and social media. I will first address the appeals and campaign methods adopted by the GPT headquarters before briefly discussing those of a number of individual candidates. While generally local elections in Taiwan are very candidate centred, the GPT tried to run a national campaign in 2014. Its core slogan was tinghaode (挺好的), which has the dual meanings of to ‘support good ones’ (candidates) and ‘very good.’ This appeared in almost all the campaign propaganda. The party issued a common policy platform for the ten GPT candidates, with the following themes: (1) getting rid of the Fourth Nuclear Power Station and ending nuclear power; (2) opening up the local councils and electoral system reform; (3) diverse families and friendly campus; and (4) promote the signing of a Cross-Strait Human Rights Agreement.21 While the first theme has been a constant one for the party, there were new elements in the other three. The second theme called for greater transparency in local governance as well as a new, two-vote local electoral system, in which half the seats would be determined by a party vote. While promoting the rights of diverse families had been important for the party since 2008, this theme also highlighted the issue of gender equality education and preventing bullying on campus. The final item was something quite new for the GPT and can be seen as a reaction to the Sunflower occupation and spate of cross-Strait agreements since 2008. It called for incorporating democratic supervision, human rights and environmental principles in any future cross-Strait agreements. According to the GPT’s 2014 annual report, the propaganda department was very productive. It produced 15 candidate election videos, 28 ‘support the good ones’ endorsement photos, 7 endorsement videos, leaflets and a range of promotional products such as towels and T-shirts.22 There was one 4.38-minute video in which each of the nine candidates speaks on camera about their political ideals. In addition, each of them had their own 30-second video. The production quality was far superior to earlier ads, even if not as creative as the 2010 ads. The dominant topic had been environmental protection in the main 2012 ads, but in 2014 the focus switched to the party’s second theme of opening up local governance to greater supervision and an alternative way of doing politics. For instance, in the first speaker’s first line, Fu Ching-fan says, ‘the first thing I want

194  The Lee Ken-cheng era to do on entering the council is to turn on the council’s lights.’ Most of those that feature in the endorsement videos were figures from alternative youth culture such as Freddy Lim (林昶佐), the lead singer from the death metal band Chthonic (閃靈) and the rap band Kou Chou Ching (拷秋勤). Although singers such as Lin Sheng-hsiang had long featured in GPT campaign events, these endorsements were targeting a different generation of alternative cultural figures. Among the 28 endorsement photographs, there were also a number that are representatives of the Ma presidency-era wave of social movement activists. These include land justice activist Frida Tsai (蔡培慧), Sunflower Movement activists Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) and Tseng Po-yu and LGBT rights figure Miao Po-ya. In other words, the GPT was also making the claim to be the political representative of the new generation of civil society activism. There was much variation in the individual campaigns at the local level, so I  will next briefly discuss a few cases. One campaign where the GPT and the local candidate were full of optimism was Fu Ching-fan in Penghu. Fu’s campaign included a distinct issue appeal as well as cultivating specific local support networks. In addition to the 300 or so who had voted GPT for the party list, key networks that Fu was targeting included the Penghu University of Science and Technology and the NGO community, many of whom he had worked with on the anti-casino campaigns, as well as certain religious groups and hospitals where he had been volunteering. In addition, he had a distinct issue appeal that focused on developing a sustainable green food economy. In Fu’s words, ‘we would like to create some local businesses using locally produced ingredients.’23 With such economic and environmental appeals, he also hoped to attract floating voters, such as from the large community of civil servants in Makung. Fu explained that he did not rely much on internet campaigning and questioned how effective the internetbased campaign of Wang Hau-yu in Chungli would be. Trees Party Founder Sheng I-che, who had offered Fu electoral advice, also recalled Fu’s confidence, saying, ‘he said he did not need to campaign too hard and could get elected. He said he expected to get about 3,000 votes.’24 Over the years when I have asked Taiwanese election candidates about the role of the national party in their campaigns, the vast majority have downplayed its importance. In contrast, Fu’s answer was quite different and gives a sense of the much more thorough preparations for elections in the Lee Ken-cheng era. A few months before the election, Fu explained the GPT party centre’s role meant that they would come up with election strategy and campaigning methods and help you systematically. I have never been involved in any election. I don’t know how to do it. I would be too shy to wave at people in the street but they will train you and lead you. They would ask you to accompany some other GPT candidates in other cities to know how they shake people’s hands and wave at people in the street. As to the election strategy, they would have a schedule for you, what you need to do in early September, mid-September and late September. Closer to the time, I would have a daily schedule planned out. Who should be on your running team? What each team member should be responsible for? They would help me. I think this is great.25

Reforms, local breakthroughs and setbacks  195 Fu’s campaign style could not have been more different from the ultimately successful campaign of Wang Hau-yu’s in Chungli, Taoyuan. In early September a United Daily News piece had taken note of Wang’s candidacy, wondering whether his high internet popularity would translate into votes.26 Wang had made a name for himself through his Facebook fan page, ‘I am a Chungli person’ (我是中壢人), and its 260,000 likes. It focused on everyday issues of local governance issues such as potholes, house prices and stray animals. In addition, Wang combined this kind of internet voter service with regular street speeches, so that he was not just visible virtually. In a post-election review meeting, Lee Ken-cheng noted that this model was not easily copied, as Wang had built up the fan page over 3–4 years and had invested significant human and financial resources to enable it to operate on a 24-hour basis.27 In 2014, the GPT candidates most in the limelight were Wang Chung-ming and Wang Hau-yu. One candidate that largely slipped off the media radar but was successfully elected was Chou Chiang-chieh in Hsinchu County. In many respects, his campaign had some of the classic hallmarks of a traditional GPT candidate. He had rich environmental activism experience and wanted to bring social movement voices into local governance. His campaign focused on local environmental issues such as pollution, illegal gravel excavation and waste dumps. In addition, he overlapped with the GPT’s 2014 theme of reforming local politics. The Taipei Times feature on him gives a sense of his campaign: Chou said he feels a responsibility to bring reform to local politics in the nation, which have long been criticized as being dominated by profit-seeking local political factions. ‘What I place importance on is the process of public deliberation, because that is what truly enables grassroots democracy. I define my role as councillor as one of a catalyst,’ Chou said.28 Like many GPT campaigns, Chou made bike riding a key feature, but as the Taipei Times report shows, his method was more physically challenging than that in the relatively flat Taipei City. Chou explained, ‘we rode at least 30 kilometers a day, which means we covered 3,000 kilometers by bike over a span of 100 days during the campaign.’29 Finally, the feature noted, in contrast with the ubiquitous campaign trucks blasting crackling music during election campaigns, Chou and his volunteers quietly canvassed the hilly terrain of his hometown, Jhudong Township (竹東), armed with nothing but the bright green flags attached to the back of their bikes.30

Explaining the GPT’s 2014 electoral performance Should 2014 be seen as a GPT success? After 18 years, the party had finally won local seats. However, there were clearly mixed feelings on the 2014 results in the party at the post-election review meetings. A few weeks later, Central Executive Committee member Chang Yu-ching reached a negative conclusion: ‘I feel we did very badly in this election.’31 She felt that even the two winning candidates

196  The Lee Ken-cheng era could have won without the GPT’s backing. With 2016 on the horizon, the 2014 elections were a chance for the GPT and Trees Party to stake their claim to be the leader of the third force, the political representatives of the Sunflower generation. Therefore, the limited GPT electoral impact suggests 2014 was a wasted opportunity. How can we best explain the GPT’s limited progress in 2014 and the variation in the electoral performance of its candidates? I  will first look at party system factors before again looking in more detail at the party and its candidates’ own campaign factors. Party system factors Given that one of the factors for the rise in social movements in the Ma era was widespread alienation from mainstream parties, 2014 should have been a perfect window of opportunity for alternative parties. During the previous two years, social movements had been on the rise and had won a number of major victories against the conservative KMT government (Fell 2017). The KMT was hated, the DPP was marginal to most of these protests and the splinter parties were largely irrelevant.32 However, the speakers at the GPT’s post-election meetings believed that the party system actually was very hostile to third force parties. Lee noted how actually it was the two biggest parties, especially the DPP, that had grown at the expense of small parties and independents (無黨籍). Moreover, he argued that the space for small, ideal-based parties remained very limited in local politics, where factions and vote buying remained prevalent.33 Party activist Wu Minhsuan reached a similar conclusion, noting how ‘in Taipei the small parties all did very badly, Wang Yi-kai’s (王奕凱) election was terrible, he received so few votes.’34 He chose to highlight Wang Yi-kai, as Wang had been a participant in the Sunflower Movement but still was not competitive. The GPT was fortunate that no other movement parties had yet emerged directly from the Sunflower Movement. The Trees Party, Radical Wings (基進側翼) and People’s Democratic Front (人民民主陣線PDF) did nominate quite extensively. But with only one exception, these movement parties did not nominate against each other in the same district, so did not directly undermine the GPT campaign.35 For the older splinter parties, 2014 was also important in their bids for survival, but perhaps the only case which had a direct negative impact on the GPT was the TSU’s nomination of former GPT figure Lee Yi-chieh in New Taipei City District 7. This meant Lee Yi-chieh was standing against the GPT’s Yang Mu-wan, someone who the party originally thought had a good chance of winning. The lowest winner was elected with 5.56 percent and if we combine Yang and Lee’s votes, they would have reached 3.75 percent, perhaps putting the GPT into the semi-competitive category. The impact of the GPT campaign An important factor in the GPT’s improved performance in 2014 was that it ran its most professional campaign to date. The quality of its communication was

Reforms, local breakthroughs and setbacks  197 far better than in the past. This was clear from its website, use of social media and quality of its election videos. The endorsement advertisements gave voters the impression that the party was backed by a very diverse set of political, social movement and cultural figures. The party’s new administrative team also appeared to play a very important role, and long-term party member Tsui Shu-hsin described it as ‘the best in its history.’36 Lee Ken-cheng believed that ‘our website, the campaign website, was better than the PFP’s, much better than the TSU’s or any other small party, it was even better aesthetically than the DPP’s.’37 However, Lee also admitted that in some less urbanised regions such as Penghu and Hsinchu County, internet campaigning was less effective.38 In Lee’s post-election report, he also noted how some of the campaign teams had problems communicating with ordinary voters. In some cases, this was to do with their language skills in Taiwanese or Hakka and a lack of the necessary grassroots vocabulary to make their ideals and policies understandable.39 Overall, Lee was pleased with the way the new nomination system had worked, and it meant that the party had much better quality control over its candidates than the Trees Party. In most cases, GPT candidates began their campaigns much earlier than in previous elections. It was able to confirm the nomination of four of its candidates in the 2013 GPT annual report published in March 2014.40 For some, the nomination process was too complicated, and Lee admitted that this did put off some potential candidates such as Chung Shuchi (鍾淑姬) in Hsinchu City.41 However, the biggest failure of the nomination process was the lack of GPT candidates in Taipei City. Lee did not seem to feel this was a major problem, and explained that ‘no party members had a strong will to stand in Taipei City, including those that had stood before.’42 Chang Yuching confirmed that many of the senior party figures, such as Lin Cheng-hsiu, Robin Winkler, Chang Hung-lin, and Pan Han-sheng, all strongly believed it was important to have at least one GPT candidate in Taipei City. Although Chang Yu-ching agreed that it made sense to focus on the Taoyuan/Hsinchu region, because of the national media’s focus on Taipei City, she accepted that they should not abandon Taipei City. She explained that ‘having a Taipei candidate can be treated as advertising costs. Right. Because we cannot afford to buy media advertisements.’43 Not nominating in Taipei City would have longterm negative consequences. After the Trees Party candidates performed quite poorly in 2014, Taipei then became a battleground between the NPP and the SDP in 2016 and 2018. The GPT’s core base between 1996 and 2012 had been lost as a result of the party split. Although the GPT ran a very impressive nationwide campaign in 2014, local elections in Taiwan tend to be determined at the local level, so I will next discuss a number of individual GPT candidates’ campaigns. Fu Ching-fan: overconfidence in Penghu One result that especially disappointed the GPT in 2014 was Fu Ching-fan in Penghu. GPT leaders were talking about him to me as early as 2012 as a strong

198  The Lee Ken-cheng era candidate, and in 2014 those I  spoke to expected him to win. Chang Yu-ching recalled that when she visited him during the campaign she saw how, when he was walking in the streets many people knew him and waved at him and when people riding motorcycles or driving cars saw him they would come back and take his leaflets. So we were sure he would be elected.44 Fu himself was full of confidence he would win comfortably. When I asked DPP politicians in Penghu at the time, they expected him to do better than the GPT candidate in 2009 but were not sure he would be elected.45 So what explains Fu’s ultimately disappointing result? Lee argued that the problem lay in the social structure, with too few people with progressive thinking and the influence of local factions and vote buying.46 Overall, though, it would appear that there were fundamental problems with Fu’s campaign. The description I laid out of his campaign earlier suggests he started campaigning too late and neglected key basic elements of the modern campaign, such as internet campaigning. Rather than listening to Sheng I-che’s campaign proposals, he trusted an outsider, Lee, to design his campaign strategy. According to Sheng, his way of campaigning is special for a local election. In a local election the first thing you need to do is to work out your connections, your core support base, what issues can help . . . in the end he only had about 700 votes. That 700 is basically those in Makung linked to the environmental movement and third force, who do not have any other suitable candidates.47 I am convinced that Sheng is right that with a better-designed campaign, Fu could and should have been elected. Liang Yi-chi: the Sanmin candidate Liang Yi-chi’s campaign in Kaohsiung Sanmin District was one of those with which the GPT was most pleased. Liang had been able to build up a campaign that surprised and challenged mainstream parties. Naturally, he benefitted from the fact the GPT had a local party branch, and under Lee, a number of the Central Executive Committee team and his NGO were located in Kaohsiung. This was a very competitive district, with the DPP and KMT nominating ambitiously as well as the TSU and PFP. In other words, while in some Kaohsiung districts there were more non-party candidates, DPP/KMT competition was more intense in Sanmin District. Liang also noted that it is harder to compete in Kaohsiung for candidates not centred on national identity issue appeals. He explained how it was more challenging if ‘you don’t shout Taiwan independence or Abian (Chen Shui-bian) or throw books at Ma Ying-jeou.’48 There were echoes of the early stages of Peng’s 1998 campaign in Sanmin in 2014. According to Liang, they had started out with a very idealistic and policy-focused campaign, but found that (like Peng) they were struggling to be noticed. Liang recalled that ‘nobody knew who I was.’49 Although they did

Reforms, local breakthroughs and setbacks  199 receive support from a number of NGOs, they needed to find a way to expand their support base. Later they shifted to a much more traditional style of campaigning on the street and markets, making short speeches on the street and campaigning on bikes. Liang found that small things, such as how many people went out campaigning together, really mattered. They discovered you needed to have at least 5–6 people out campaigning to be taken as a serious candidate by traditional voters. This was Liang and his team’s first campaign, and in hindsight Liang believed if they had started campaigning earlier, that could have made the difference. It is unfortunate that the GPT did not nominate again in this district in 2018. However, Liang’s campaign laid the foundation for the GPT’s Kaohsiung base in 2016, and two of his core team would go on to stand for election for the GPT in 2016 and 2018. The successful campaigns of Wang Hau-yu and Chou Chiang-chieh Although the GPT was delighted to see its first local councillors elected in 2014, some party figures admitted they both could probably still have been elected without GPT labels. GPT Spokesperson Jia Bo-kai put it in these terms: Hau-yu and Chiang-chieh were elected in 2014 because they had been active and had wide connections in their districts. The GPT should stress local connections, to put roots down in the local districts, to move from local councils to the national parliament.50 Both were locals and benefitted from family support networks. Although they both begun their campaigns very early, they adopted quite distinct but effective campaign strategies. Wang’s approach combined intensive use of his social media fan page with actual physical shop fronts. Chou, like the unsuccessful Yang Muwan, relied on intensive cycle campaigning, as well as environmental movement involvement. However, Lee argued that in an addition to Chou’s hard campaigning, a number of factors gave Chou the edge: Chou Chiang-chieh’s votes came from the political opportunity in Zhudong. The DPP was divided and could not agree on a good candidate. The incumbent county councillors were all over 50, which created a strong contrast to the young and well educated [PhD class] Chou Chiang-chieh. This helped to attract newcomers to the area who desired political change.51 From Table 4.13, we can see how Chou only narrowly won. In addition, he probably also benefitted from the fact that the KMT over-nominated with six candidates (plus a strong KMT rebel) in a district with a magnitude of 6! The least successful campaign: Chang Ming-li For a party that had long stressed gender equality, one of the biggest problems of the 2014 candidate line up was that all except one candidate were male. Eventually,

200  The Lee Ken-cheng era Chang Yu-ching convinced Chang Ming-li (張明麗) to stand in Keelung District 7. However, though her vote total (1,048) was not the lowest, she was the only one not to get her candidate deposit back. Like Chang Yu-ching in 2012, she made food safety one of her distinct appeals in the campaign, and like many of the GPT candidates, she found her campaign was most effective on newcomers to the district. Initially she found it hard to get her message across, as ‘people did not understand this foreign policy proposal, “What is non GM food?’ ”52 However, the later emergence of the adulterated cooking oil scandals during the campaign changed the picture. She recalled how one day a neighbourhood chief candidate came to see her full of excitement; he asked whether she could tell fortunes! He explained how before the cooking oil scandal, he just did not understand the idea of non-GM school lunches, but now he did. He believed that Chang’s prediction had come true!53 She also found that a problem with her target voters (newcomers to the area) was that many of them were not interested enough in local politics to vote. Reflecting on the campaign, Chang also wished they could have cooperated with People’s Democratic Front (PDF) more, as that was only location where another movement party stood against the GPT in 2014. However, according to Wu Minhsuan, this was more a strategic nomination, so that the PDF had a candidate in all seven Keelung districts. Wu stated that they had a good interaction with this PDF candidate.54 Nevertheless, it appears there were some problems in the Chang Ming-li campaign itself that prevented it fully taking off. Chang Yu-ching recalled the situation when she went to see Chang Ming-li and told her ‘there was only over a month or two months left, but you say you have still not been out in the streets campaigning.’55 Chang Yu-ching felt Chang Ming-li had some advantages, as while she’d been standing in a new district, Chang Ming-li had been living in the Chidu area a few years and actually did have a small campaign team. So Chang Yu-ching started working with her on targeting where to campaign in the district. However, she also discovered that her team was not functioning well. She recalls that once they had a campaigning location plan, ‘she and her campaign manager did not dare to go out to campaign for votes.’56 She tried to share her own experiences of 2011–12 with Chang Ming-li. Eventually Chang Yu-ching got her out in the streets. This helped to get Chang Ming-li’s campaign off the ground: ‘I discovered she really had natural talent, after we had done one round, she was walking even faster than me.’57 Later, Chang Ming-li said to Chang Yu-ching, ‘I don’t want to stay in the office any longer, going out is more fun.’58 If we consider that the lowest successful candidate in District 7 won with just 2,571, we can conclude that if Chang Ming-li had started serious street campaigning earlier, she could have been close to being elected. Moreover, it is unfortunate that Chang Ming-li did not stand again in 2018. The case of Wang Hsing-chih is indicative. He had stood for the GPT (as a Raging Citizens nominee) in 2008 and in 2014 stood in a neighbouring Keelung district for the PDF. After losing twice, he did not give up and was finally elected as an independent city councillor in 2018.

Reforms, local breakthroughs and setbacks  201 Documenting Wang Chung-ming’s failed breakthrough in Tamsui Wang Chung-ming’s failed election was viewed as the GPT’s biggest disappointment of 2014. With the departure of Pan Han-sheng, Wang was the most experienced GPT candidate in 2014. He ran a better funded campaign than 2010 and had much stronger local networks and achievements to campaign on. As discussed earlier, Wang also had non-social movement networks and admitted, ‘I am probably the only one in the GPT that goes to weddings and funerals.’59 Lastly, the chances of being elected were increased due to the fact that the district magnitude had been increased from 3 to 4. However, in the end he came sixth out of six candidates and his vote actually fell from 8,321 in 2010 to only 6,880 in 2014. In the post-election GPT review meeting, Wang raised three main factors for his defeat. Firstly, he questioned whether he and his team had done enough on the basics of election campaigning that are required to let voters know the candidates and their policies. This point is perhaps more relevant for GPT candidates more generally, as they are often highly critical of Taiwan’s electoral culture. He compared the process to cooking, in that ‘you have entered the kitchen, you must not only not be afraid of getting your hands dirty, or afraid of the heat, you have to know how to get the flavour right and how to cook.’60 The second point was that he believed he ‘had been defeated by 318.’61 In other words, the DPP had been able to take advantage of the post-Sunflower desire for new and youthful politics by nominating a young second-generation candidate. In Lee’s words, ‘the DPP’s candidate was a young lady who had just come back from the United States and who had no social movement experience. But they packaged her as someone of the Sunflower generation, anti-nuclear, with a new progressive image.’62 Moreover, the DPP spent heavily on both local and national advertising for her campaign, something that was well beyond the GPT’s finances. The third point Wang raised was the question of whether the image created by his movement activism actually helped or harmed his campaign. He observed that, ‘in Tamsui, I feel that I lost by not being well known enough, I also lost in being too well known.’63 He noted that because of his well-known activism on transport issues, people would often blame him for traffic jams! When I met Wang in September 2018, I was curious to see how he viewed the election almost four years later. He concluded that his iron support base had actually increased by 2014, but ‘the problem was that the floating voters did not come out. One reason for this was our campaign strategy.’64 He highlighted three core mistakes in the strategy to gain the support of floating voters. Firstly, although he had joined the 318 movement, unlike his DPP rival he had not wanted to claim credit for this in his campaign appeals. But that was our biggest mistake that time, not relying on 318. It was only once we knew for sure we would lose that we casually did some publicity about the Sunflowers. I knew them all, it was easy to get a lot of Sunflower activists to recommend me. But it was too late by then. . . . With hindsight, the most

202  The Lee Ken-cheng era useful thing would have been to get some of those Sunflower stars to come and help. But at that time, I did not want to do that.65 I found a similar sentiment in the comments of one of his campaign team, Jia Bokai, who noted that in the aftermath of the 318 Sunflower Movement many small parties were formed like SDP and NPP and others, and people wanted to join elections to take advantage of the wave. Many of our GPT supporters hoped that we could take advantage of this wave and enter the political system. The GPT should not be a wave surfer and just follow the trend, because I believe that the wave was empty.66 The second weakness Wang raised was that the campaign was just too focused on grassroots campaigning and neglected the internet. Considering Wang’s background in blogging and the rise of Wang Hau-yu’s intensive social media campaigning, this is all the more perplexing. Wang commented, I still think it is due to that misjudgement. We insisted on using a grassroots approach. As I  now look back on it, I  am not sure what we were worried about, we just did not want to rely on the internet.67 The third weakness he raised was that he did not take the chance to gain national visibility by appearing more on television, as this would have been a prime way to get known by the floating voters his regular campaigning was struggling to reach. Wang explained that it’s quite ironic that elections are based on watching TV, if you are not appearing on TV it’s hard to get elected. It’s hard for local councillors to get on TV, but if you do national issues it’s easy to get on TV. At the time some people in the GPT wanted me to get on the TV politics talks shows, to become a talk show pundit (名嘴). But I resisted this idea. Now as I look back, that would have been right. If you often go on talk shows people will often see you. If you get on TV regularly you should be able to win. Otherwise campaigning is hard. I  also had an advantage that I  could discuss those local issues on national media. For instance, there were a lot of chances to talk about nuclear energy. The problem was I did not do this. When the Sunflower Movement occurred again there was a chance but I did not do it. . . . If I had worked hard in this direction, the election would have been much easier. So, for local council candidates who join national issues, so long as you can get on TV and raise your visibility, it should be very beneficial. This is because it is impossible for your rivals to do this. None of my rivals could get on TV.68 As mentioned in Chapter 5, Lin Show-tsai’s documentary Unfinished Progress is the best way to get a feel for Wang’s 2014 campaign. The film also reveals how, even in individual district campaigns, we can operationalise my explanatory

Reforms, local breakthroughs and setbacks  203 framework. In other words, a key reason for Wang’s failure was the DPP’s nomination of a young candidate who it branded as a social movement representative (an accommodative mainstream party approach). The DPP also used an adversarial approach of attacking Wang, but this did not have the positive niche party effect that Meguid predicts. In the film, we see how the DPP spread false rumours that four years earlier the Cheng family (the young DPP candidate) had financially supported Wang and now he was trying bite the hand that fed him. It would appear this unscrupulous tactic really did unbalance Wang’s campaign. Nevertheless, as we have seen in this section, Wang made a number of key errors in his campaign strategy that cost him dearly. Therefore, he was unable to achieve the balance between vote maximising and core party values. I first watched Lin’s film in preparation for interviewing Wang in September 2018 and was deeply moved. But I cried so much on viewing it as I was completing writing the book in the summer of 2020.

Trees Party campaigns of 2014 As mentioned earlier, despite the Trees Party statistically performing better than the GPT in 2014, the mood in the party after the election was gloomy. Speaking to the party founders revealed a number of themes that can help us understand the Trees Party’s 2014 campaign. Firstly, Sheng explained that right from the start there were generational differences between the two groups at the core of the party, the middle-aged Protect the Trees and the younger Youth Occupy Politics groups. This factional split also was visible in the campaign; as Sheng explained, there were two models of election campaign. The one in greater Taipei was one campaign model. And another for the rest outside Taipei. I was in charge of the election for Chichi township mayor in Nantou and Hsinchu County Zhubei, Chiayi and Taichung.69 Both the Pan brothers and Sheng agreed that a major problem with the campaign was the lack of preparation time. As Sheng explained, we had been too rushed in preparation for the campaign. The party was only formed on August  10 and we needed to register candidates at the end of August or early September and the vote was on November 20. There was not enough preparation time with candidates. The candidates close to the Taipei Headquarters were OK. Pan Han-sheng was standing so they could have a clear standard for the campaign. He was the representative candidate. So people could associate him with the Trees Party. Pan Han-chiang is also very experienced. But outside Taipei it was harder to control the quality.70 Pan Han-sheng himself was clearly very impressed with the political enthusiasm of the younger generation of candidates. He also believed that the Youth Occupy Politics appeal had been critical in the Trees Party vote share, which

204  The Lee Ken-cheng era again suggests the GPT had lost a valuable resource in allowing Sheng to leave. Pan explained the election by saying, ‘of course environmental protection votes made up a significant proportion of our support. But if we take Lin Chia-yu’s case, her votes were mainly youth votes. That was different from our situation in the past.’71 Considering the candidates outside Taipei all had no prior electoral experience, it is not surprising there was much variation in how well they performed. But there was also much variation in how the five Trees Party candidates performed in Taipei City. However, on reflection, Pan was very pleased with the Taipei nomination strategy ‘because the media is all here, this brought visibility to our brand.’72 Part of this strategy involved nominating in all Taipei City districts, even though they knew some would have no chance of getting elected. Originally the Pan brothers had not intended standing, but eventually they decided to stand to make up the numbers. An advantage they noted to this strategy was that they felt their investment in about 40 bus advertisements was especially effective. They mentioned, for instance, how the bus route number 204 crossed through four different electoral districts in Taipei.73 Despite being more experienced, the Pan brothers were not the top voter winners in Taipei. Pan Han-sheng believed that this was partly because they needed to devote much time to campaign for first timer Trees Party candidates and so neglected their own districts. Therefore, Pan noted that his brother had almost no campaign events of his own.74 A key feature of the next three chapters is that the GPT’s handling of its party alliances ultimately undermined its election campaigns in 2016, 2020 and, to a lesser extent, 2018. Looking back now, it strikes me that if the Trees Party and GPT had been able to put aside their personal animosities and create an election alliance, they could have been more successful in 2014. Of course, they did not stand candidates against each other, but if there had been joint campaign events or some real coordination, then candidates on the edge of being elected could have got into local councils. With open GPT support, maybe Lin Chia-yu could have been elected in Taipei, and with Sheng’s support, maybe Fu Chingfan could have been elected in Penghu. Sadly, clashes of personalities meant even this limited cooperation was ruled out.

Reflecting on the 2014 campaigns Both the GPT and Trees Party achieved limited breakthroughs in the 2014 elections. Of course, the party system posed both challenges and opportunities. The rise of social movements and resulting changes to the political agenda represented an opportunity for alternative parties. It is ironic that the DPP appeared to have been much more successful at riding the Sunflower wave than the two movement parties. Under Lee, the quality of the GPT’s local campaign was far higher than the previous round of local elections in 2010. Although only two GPT local councillors were elected, the case studies discussed here suggest that with better campaign design and strategies, the GPT could have been much more successful in 2014, which would have put it in a stronger position to contest the 2016 national

Reforms, local breakthroughs and setbacks 205 elections. To borrow from the title of Wang Chung-ming’s documentary, the GPT was still unfinished progress at this stage. Even before the 2014 results had been announced, Lee and his colleagues were preparing for the 2016 national elections, which Lee viewed as much more important than local elections. Understanding the GPT’s campaign strategy and its electoral performance will be the subject of the next chapter.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Yu Wan-ju, 17 December 2012. Song Chia-lun, Facebook post, 23 January 2012. Peng Yen-wen, 4 January 2014. Pan Han-sheng, 17 December 2012. Yu Wan-ju, 17 December 2012. Tsai Chi-hao, 17 December 2012. Lee Ken-cheng, 4 January 2015. Chiu Hua-mei, 4 January 2014. Lee Ken-cheng, 4 January 2015. Yu Wan-ju, 18 August 2013. Yu Wan-ju, 3 January 2017. Chiu Hua-mei, 4 January 2014. Lee Ken-cheng, 4 January 2015. Ibid. Chiu Hua-mei, 4 January 2014. Lee Ken-cheng, 4 January 2015. Chiu Hua-mei, 4 January 2014. Yu Wan-ju, 18 August 2013. Ibid. Kao Cheng-yan, 26 December 2014. GPT news release, 23 June 2014, www.greenparty.org.tw/news/20140622/156. GPT 2014 Annual Report, https://issuu.com/greenpartytaiwanwin/docs/greenparty_ 2014_annualreport_hq. Fu Ching-fan, 19 August 2014. Sheng I-che, 12 September 2018. Fu Ching-fan, 19 August 2014. UDN Evening News, 8 September 2014, B2 (Taoyuan). Lee Ken-cheng, GPT Kaohsiung Post-Election Review Meeting, 19 December 2014. Lii Wen, ‘Interview: Hsinchu Councillor-Elect Seeks to Revitalize Local Politics,’ Taipei Times, 22 December 2014, 3. Ibid. Ibid. Chang Yu-ching, 27 December 2014. Even the most popular of the splinter parties, the PFP, only recorded party identification levels of 2.7 percent in 2014. Lee Ken-cheng, GPT Kaohsiung Post-Election Review Meeting, 19 December 2014. Wu Min-hsuan, GPT Kaohsiung Post-Election Review Meeting, 19 December 2014. The People’s Democratic Front is the latest incarnation of the Raging Citizens. Tsui Shu-hsin, GPT Taipei Post-Election Review Meeting, 21 December 2014. Lee Ken-cheng, 4 January 2015. Lee Ken-cheng, GPT Kaohsiung Post-Election Review Meeting, 19 December 2014. Lee Ken-cheng, ‘GPT Election 2014 Report and Review’ (2014綠黨選舉報告與檢 討),7, www.greenparty.org.tw/news/20150128/240.

206  The Lee Ken-cheng era 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74

GPT 2013 Annual Report, www.greenparty.org.tw/node/125. Lee Ken-cheng, 4 January 2015. Ibid. Chang Yu-ching, 27 December 2014. Ibid. Chen Hui-ling, 18 August 2014. Lee Ken-cheng, GPT Kaohsiung Post-Election Review Meeting, 19 December 2014. Sheng I-che, 12 September 2018. Liang Yi-chi, GPT Kaohsiung Post-Election Review Meeting, 19 December  2014. Liang is referring to a case in which a Radical Wings activist gained much media attention by throwing a copy of George Kerr’s (2018) Formosa Betrayed at President Ma Ying-jeou. Ibid. GPT Kaohsiung Post-Election Review Meeting, 19 December 2014. Jia Bo-kai, 4 April 2017. Lee Ken-cheng, ‘GPT Election 2014 Report and Review’ (2014 綠黨選舉報告與檢討), 6. Chang Ming-li, Taipei GPT Post-Election Review Meeting, 19 December 2014. Ibid. Wu Min-hsuan, GPT Kaohsiung Post-Election Review Meeting, 19 December 2014. Chang Yu-ching, 27 December 2014. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Wang Chung-ming, GPT Taipei Post-Election Review Meeting, 21 December 2014. Ibid. Ibid. 318 is another term for the Sunflower Movement, as the occupation began on March 18. Lee Ken-cheng, ‘GPT Election 2014 Report and Review’ (2014 綠黨選舉報告與檢討), 6. Wang Chung-ming, GPT Taipei Post-Election Review Meeting, 21 December 2014. Wang Chung-ming, 14 September 2018. Ibid. Jia Bo-kai, 4 April 2017. Wang Chung-ming, 14 September 2018. Ibid. Sheng I-che, 12 September 2018. Ibid. Pan Han-sheng, 19 December 2014. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.

References Fell, Dafydd. 2017. Taiwan’s Social Movements under Ma Ying-jeou: From the Wild Strawberries to the Sunflowers. London: Routledge. Grano, Simona. 2015. Environmental Governance in Taiwan. London. Routledge. Kerr, George. 2018. Formosa Betrayed. Manchester: Camphor Press.

12 The 2016 GPT SDP Alliance’s failed national breakthrough The lunchboxes and teenage idol election

Having finally won local election seats in late 2014, could the GPT follow up and make a similar national election breakthrough in January 2016? What better way to mark the party’s twentieth anniversary than re-entering parliament? However, the political environment facing the GPT was quite different from the previous rounds of national elections in 2012 or 2008. In the aftermath of the Sunflower Movement, the GPT not only had to face potential competition from at least four new movement parties but also a revived and rebranded DPP. Therefore, a major challenge facing the GPT’s leadership was what kind of alliance strategy to adopt that would allow it to win election without compromising its core party values. I start this chapter by looking at the process that ultimately led to the GPT SDP Alliance. There were numerous potential alliance or merger scenarios, as well as the possibility of just going it alone. I will review the complex and at times contradictory trends that led to the formation of this election alliance. Next I return to the ‘what is the GPT?’ question by examining the contents of the Alliance’s campaign message and strategies. We saw in 2008 how the alliance with Raging Citizens changed the GPT’s appeals. So, given that the alliance with the SDP was a more equal one, it is not surprising to see considerable change in the GPT’s 2016 appeals compared to 2012 but also to 2014. I then devote the largest part of the chapter to my question of how best to explain the GPT’s electoral fortunes. To what extent can mainstream party approaches explain the GPT’s limited progress in the 2016 elections? Or does the answer lie in the quality of the GPT’s own campaign?

Attempted mergers of 2014–2015 ‘The environment for the GPT and the third force is very hostile.’1 This was the key message from sociologist Wu Jieh-min’s (吳介民) comments at the GPT’s Taipei post-election review meeting on December 21, 2014. Apart from the fact that the political momentum seemed to be with the DPP, the biggest challenge that Wu saw was how, in the limited time left, to bring together the very diverse strands of what is viewed as the third force for the 2016 elections. Wu highlighted his point by challenging the audience to tell him what groups constituted the third force, and they came up with a long list.

208  The Lee Ken-cheng era However, eight months later, on August 17, 2015, it was announced that the GPT and SDP would soon register as an alliance with the Ministry of Interior.2 The official formation date of the GPT SDP Alliance was August  31, 2015. Although this was officially Taiwan’s 281st party, I did not discuss this together with the other new party formations in Chapter 3. This is because I see it more as a temporary electoral alliance that had the potential to develop into a real party. It is important to understand how and why the alliance came together because this would have a major impact on the style and effectiveness of the 2016 campaign. Soon after Lee Ken-cheng started his reforms of the GPT, discussions with an eye to the formation of another alternative party commenced. This was initiated in the summer of 2013 by former political prisoner and DPP chair Lin Yi-hsiung (林義雄), who, according to Nachman, ‘invited people from NGOs, academics, activists, lawyers, and some politicians from the Green Party to his home for weekly meetings to openly discuss the idea of creating a new political party’ (2020, 9). This resulted in the establishment of the Taiwan Citizen Union (TCU) in late 2013. This discussion group was thus established well before the eruption of the Sunflower Movement. However, the group became increasingly divided by conflict between what Nachman calls the Fan Yun and Lin factions. Nachman suggests the cause of their conflicts were a mixture of personality clashes and differences over future electoral strategies, such as the relationship with the DPP (2020, 18). Although TCU discussions continued into the autumn of 2014, the two factions began preparations for their own separate parties much earlier and were actively recruiting potential candidates all through the year. The NPP was officially established on January 25, 2015, and the SDP on March 11, 2015. Prior to the eventual creation of the GPT SDP Alliance in August 2015, a number of alternative alliance formats were discussed. These included a possible GPT/TCU alliance, a formal merger of the SDP and GPT and even a draft agreement for a GPT NPP SDP Election Alliance (綠黨時代力量社民黨參政聯盟) in June 2015.3 The winding process that led to the eventual GPT SDP Alliance raises a number of interesting puzzles. Why was the GPT not able to integrate these new forces to create an even stronger GPT, and why was it the GPT SDP Alliance and not any of the other proposed formats that eventually materialised? Could the alliance have been wider in the forces it incorporated? According to Nachman, ‘the Green Party was for a time seriously considered as a viable party vehicle for the TCU’ (2020, 11). In fact, when I spoke to one of the GPT participants, Chiu Hua-mei, in early January  2014, she sounded very positive about the discussions with Lin Yi-hsiung.4 However, Nachman argues that the GPT-led model was rejected after a few months of heated discussions, citing a number of reasons. He noted that Lin Feng-cheng (林峯正) and Michael Lin (林世煜), what he calls the Lin faction, ‘had well-known personality conflicts with the Green Party leader Li Keng-cheng’ and that neither ‘wanted the TCU to turn into a lifeline for the Green Party’ (11–12). One of those that eventually went on to form the SDP, Chen Shang-chih (陳尚志), explained, ‘I did spend a lot of effort to integrate those three groups. Unfortunately, the person in charge of the NPP then totally rejected the GPT.’5 Nachman’s respondents also noted that some

The 2016 GPT SDP Alliance  209 ‘thought that the Green Party’s pre-existing reliance on environmental frames and history of mediocre electoral performance would be too difficult to reform. Some also claimed the organizational structure of the Green Party was overly bureaucratized and dysfunctional’ (12). In fact, Chiu did confirm that Lin Yi-hsiung had the impression that the GPT was not a serious party.6 Nachman notes that after these initial clashes, GPT figures drifted away from the TCU (12). The picture did change, as Fan Yun became a member of the TCU a few months before the Sunflower Movement but after the initial TCU–GPT clashes. With the emergence of a Fan faction in the TCU, the possibilities of cooperation with the GPT returned. In fact, a number of TCU members spoke at the GPT’s August 31, 2014, election event in Taipei, such as Chen Shang-chih and Frida Tsai. Nachman notes how according to one version of the end of the TCU story towards the end of autumn 2014, the Lin Faction formally left the TCU and that left Fan in charge (2020, 19). On November 11, 2014, the magazine the Journalist (新新聞) reported that Lee and Fan were planning to merge the TCU and GPT.7 The report also noted how some older GPT members were opposed to the idea due to Lin Yi-hsiung’s political background. Over a month later, after the November 2014 elections, I  asked Lee about his vision of third force cooperation for the 2016 elections. Lee rejected all other small parties out of hand except the TCU.8 Interestingly, the model that Lee saw as most feasible for cooperation, that of an election alliance with the Fan-led TCU, was actually what eventually materialised in August 2015.9 Both Fan and Chen had long-term ties with Lee and other members of the core Lee-era GPT team. Moreover, under Lee there had been a clear attempt to give the GPT a stronger labour image, especially in its alliances with independent trade unions. Therefore, I was curious why they chose to go it alone and create the SDP rather than bring their issues into the GPT. On January 4, 2015, Lee also admitted that his preferred model was for the TCU people to join the GPT.10 But he noted that it was looking very difficult to achieve. Chen Shang-chih acknowledged that he had been in a dilemma about whether to join the now more labour focused GPT under Lee but in the end, he felt the GPT was still too environmentally focused.11 Fan Yun’s answer was similar, as she also worried that the GPT would always be primarily associated with environmentalism. According to Fan, ‘we thought that if Taiwan needed a new party, a third force, then it should be social democracy.’12

Understanding the creation of the GPT SDP Alliance Back in 2017, I published a journal article on the history of party mergers and takeovers in Taiwan, but for a number of reasons I was not able to include the GPT SDP Alliance case (Fell 2017).13 Belanger and Godbout define party mergers as ‘the fusion of two (or more) political parties into a single new party organization. As a result of the fusion, the former parties must cease to exist, to be replaced by a new political formation’ (Belanger and Godbout 2010, 41). Although there were many cases of party merger proposals and negotiations in Taiwan, none exactly qualify under this definition. When it comes to the GPT SDP Alliance, we have a

210  The Lee Ken-cheng era new political formation, but the original parties continued to function. Nevertheless, we can still treat this as a partial merger case, as some saw a merger as their preferred outcome. The Journalist article in November 2014 suggested that Lee was supportive of the idea of a merger, though by January 2015 he clearly did not think there was enough time.14 On the eve of the 2016 election, Peng told me she expected the parties to formally merge after the election.15 In the 2017 article, I adopted a framework to explain mergers proposed by Coffe and Torenvlied (2008) that looked at the interplay between contextual, inter-party and inner-party factors. I found the most important contextual factors were the relative size of the parties, the electoral system and electoral results. When it comes to inter-party variables, my cases showed the importance of ideological proximity as well as the development of inter-party trust through previous cooperation. Lastly, I found that the key inner-party variable was the strength of party leaders supportive of mergers. Before moving on, it is important to make clear who the actors in the potential merger or alliance are. My interviews suggested that different actors had different views on who could potentially be included in the alliance. For instance, Pan Han-sheng had complained in late 2014 to Chang Yu-ching, ‘why does the GPT only want to merge with the TCU. . . . Why don’t you want to merge with the Trees Party?’16 In other words, this suggests that Pan was willing to be included in a future merged party. In fact, though Chang and many others would have loved to bring Pan back, this was out of the question from Lee’s perspective. Winkler recalled that when they held the consensus-seeking camp in March  2015, they listed all the potential parties to cooperate with and did not even mention the Trees Party. The GPT consensus from this camp was that there should be a three-party alliance with the NPP and SDP.17 However, Fan and Chen both explained that that was impossible due to the degree that the NPP looked down on the GPT. As Chen explained, interestingly enough half a year later, there were people in the GPT wanting to see the three parties cooperating, with us and the NPP. . . . But some of the GPT people did not understand the situation and were still fanaticising about the possibility to work together. They thought that by forming a bigger group they would gain more power. But that was the previous year’s (2014) possibility not this year’s (2015) anymore.18 I therefore take the central actors to analyse in this potential merger case to be only the GPT and SDP.

Contextual factors and inter-party factors My interviews suggested that a number of contextual factors can help us to understand how the alliance-making process evolved. The need to pass the 5 percent threshold to enter parliament, together with the rise of a strong new alternative

The 2016 GPT SDP Alliance  211 party in the NPP put added pressure on the GPT and SDP to reach an agreement. It seemed unlikely either would have much chance of even getting close to the threshold standing on their own. However, this cannot tell us the whole story, otherwise they would have found a way to incorporate the Trees Party or Radical Wings into the alliance. Given the GPT’s longer history, its recently elected local councillors and bigger membership, it is not surprising that the GPT was regarded as the slightly bigger partner in the alliance. For instance, in the agreement the GPT was able to nominate four out of the six party list places and got the top two. However, Chiu Hua-mei believed that many GPT members had an exaggerated sense of how powerful their party was, and this attitude was very detrimental in the negotiations with the SDP and in the actual subsequent campaign. She explained that many people did not see clearly that the GPT was seriously lacking resources and manpower. I knew this all along, what kind of small party we were. During the discussions about cooperating to create the GPT SDP Alliance, they kept saying how will we divide the finances? How will we avoid them taking advantage of us? The GPT has an 18 year history and the SDP was just a new party. It took us a long time to reach the agreement to work with them. In the end we had the agreement. But this brought many injuries.19 In reality, though, the strength of the two parties was not so different, and in the campaign the SDP’s district candidates were actually much stronger than those of the GPT. Although the relationship between the core leadership of the GPT and SDP was actually very good, the negotiations that led to the alliance agreement soured relations. One figure who had doubts on the alliance idea was Winkler, who recalled how in May when I  had attended some of the meetings with the SDP my first question at the first meeting was ‘why didn’t you just join us?’ They said that you’re just about the environment. I said ‘have you read our charter?’20 However, Chiu Hua-mei felt that this preoccupation of some party members with grilling SDP people on why they needed to form a party at all did make SDP figures very uncomfortable and damaged inter-party trust.21 Perhaps as a result of the 2012 controversy over Pan’s cooperation with the DPP, many in the GPT were also sensitive to the links between the SDP and former DPP Chair Lin Yi-hsiung. Lin Cheng-hsiu did not rule out cooperating with the SDP, but he questioned the rationale of the proposed merger. He explained, ‘it should not be under the guidance of a father figure, Lin Yi-hsiung. We are now in our 50s, why do we need a father to save us? This is wrong.’22 Another figure opposed to the alliance was outgoing Co-Convenor Yu Wan-ju, who saw this as almost indirectly working with the DPP.23

212  The Lee Ken-cheng era

Inner-party factors We can divide the inner-party factors into two periods: before and after the establishment of the SDP. To a large extent, Lee had freedom of action to negotiate with Fan and the soon-to-be SDP prior to March 2015. Chang Yu-ching confirmed in December 2014 that there was opposition from some in the party. She explained, ‘one group feels that Lee Ken-cheng is going to sell out the GPT, as they are afraid after the TCU and GPT merge, the GPT name will disappear.’24 She also noted that Yu and Lin Cheng-hsiu were uncomfortable about the way that Lee was negotiating with the TCU without really consulting the Central Executive Committee. Apart from the Lin Yi-hsiung connection, Lin Cheng-hsiu believed that the GPT would lose its international connection if they merged. He was furious with Lee and tried to lobby other senior party members to come out against Lee’s merger idea. Even though Winkler had his doubts, at this stage he had an open mind on the idea. He recalled how Cheng-hsiu started looking like he was going to disrupt it. Because I said in principle it’s about being in politics, we form a new party and then we re-join Global Greens. So I  was OK with that and wanted to talk it through with Cheng-hsiu. That’s when I realised how difficult nonviolent communication can be.25 However, at this stage the opposition to Lee’s plan had its limitations, as Yu had been marginalised and many in the party tended to be suspicious of Lin Chenghsiu due to his past links with Ma Ying-jeou. The inner-party balance of power appeared different in the second period after the new Central Executive Committee was elected in January 2015 and the SDP was officially established in March. Although merger opponents such as Lin Cheng-hsiu and Yu Wan-ju were no longer on the Central Executive Committee, Chiu Hua-mei noted how some of the newcomers, such as Tsui Shu-hsin and Hung Chung-yen (洪崇晏), raised many challenges to the alliance formation. The other major shift in the power balance came with the arrival of the newly elected councillors, particularly Wang Hau-yu. A  number of respondents highlighted him as someone that was critical of the alliance plan. Winkler recalled that at the March 2015 consensus seeking camp, there was a lot of discussion about this alliance. . . . There was a clear consensus, there was a strong group Hau-yu and I were among them that we do not need to join these parties. So the compromise was that it was either all three (GPT, SDP and NPP) or nothing. We go it alone.26 Although Chiu Yu-bin believed they would have been better off forcing through a party merger, Chiu Hua-mei was not sure they would have had enough member support in the party congress to achieve this at the time.27

The 2016 GPT SDP Alliance  213 We can thus see how the interplay of contextual, inter-party and inner-party factors can help to understand the final compromise alliance outcome. The electoral system and rise of the rival NPP meant that the GPT was under pressure to find a way to make itself more competitive. Although the GPT and SDP are actually very close ideologically, the GPT’s sense of superiority contributed to the protracted negotiations and damaged mutual trust between the parties. Lastly, the GPT’s changed inner-party balance of power after the SDP was actually formed in the spring of 2015 gave Lee and his allies much less room for manoeuvre than if they had attempted the merger in late 2014.

The 2016 national election platforms and campaigns When the GPT SDP Alliance was officially announced on August 17, 2015, the leaders only offered some preliminary ideas on what their election platform would be. GPT Co-Convenor Lee Ken-cheng stated Taiwan needs a new political force aside from two main political parties, which are both biased towards corporations  – a political force that would always stand up to defend land, the weak and human rights. . . . The Green– SDP Alliance will act as a watchdog and an opposition party.28 The SDP’s Fan Yun, meanwhile, said the Alliance would aim to eliminate the KMT, balance the DPP and strive to become the ‘crucial minority’ in the Legislative Yuan.29 An examination of the 2016 election gazettes can give us a clear picture of the parties’ platforms. Before analysing the 2016 appeal of the new Alliance, let me first address the Trees Party platform in its first (maybe only) national election. The opening gazette sentence stated, ‘the Trees Party is a party for environmental protection, animal protection and youth participation in politics, and its party platform is the Global Greens Charter.’ In other words, there was a clear sense of continuity with the party’s founding principles, discussed in Chapter 3, as well as the claim to be a genuine member of the Global Greens. In what, in 2016, had become a crowded field, the Trees Party claimed to be ‘the real third force.’ The majority of the party’s proposals were built on the party’s founding themes, such as calling for the creation of an animal protection police force and reducing the voting and election standing age to 18. In addition, there were some novel proposals, such as bringing in direct elections for district chiefs and district representative posts and opposition to Taiwan joining the Trans Pacific Trade Partnership. It even called for dispersing the capital city functions away from Taipei. Although many of the themes covered in the GPT SDP Alliance gazette policy statement had featured in earlier elections, there were changes in the overall proportion of issue mentions and some fresh proposals. There was less discussion of environmental protection matters than in earlier elections. Labour and work rights were given record levels of attention, even more than in 2008. For

214  The Lee Ken-cheng era instance, there were calls for reducing working hours, raising wages, banning the temporary contract work system, strengthening union organisation and enhancing labour’s collective bargaining power, as well as increased taxes on big business. It also included appeals to both younger and older voters. For instance, it called for a fair pensions system and a comprehensive long-term care system. Like the Trees Party, the Alliance called for full political rights from 18 and also better childcare provisions. As discussed in Chapter 4, at the Asia Pacific Green Congress in June 2015, a resolution was passed recognising Taiwan to be a sovereign, independent country. The gazette text followed up with the line ‘Taiwan is already a sovereign independent country, Taiwan’s sovereignty belongs to the Taiwanese people and it has never belonged to the Peoples Republic of China.’ While the GPT had often avoided the unification–independence debate since 2000, it was taking a clear and unambiguous stance close to the DPP position outlined in its 1999 Resolution on Taiwan’s Future (Rigger 2001, 131–133). Finally, the gazette policy text ended with a discussion on mainstreaming diverse sexualities, including the call for same-sex marriage equality. In fact, this focus on sexuality was similar to that of Song Chia-lun in 2010. For instance, the Taipei Times reported that ‘Lee Yen-jong (李晏榕), who is standing for the Green Party-Social Democratic Party Alliance, has been giving out free condoms in wrappers printed with her campaign information to promote safe sex.’30 The next question is how the Green Parties tried to bring these appeals into their actual campaign communication. The Trees Party only had two very basic YouTube ads in the final campaign period. A first 25-second ad essentially just introduced the various party candidates, reminded voters it had resolutely opposed the Sixth Naphtha Cracker and called for a ban on burning bituminous coal. As for the presidential election, it explained, ‘no matter who’s elected president, we can turn them into an environmental protection president.’31 The second ad was a 50-second video featuring the Trees Party’s two party list candidates, Chiu Hsin-hui (邱馨慧) and Pan Han-sheng, as well as tree protection protest photographs. It ended with a screenshot summary of the key policies in the gazette.32 In contrast, the GPT had the best-funded set of election ads and campaign rallies in the party’s history. The most popular GPT ad in 2016, with over 690,000 views on YouTube, was titled ‘Change: Win Back Taiwan’s Beautiful Values’ (改變: 贏 回台灣美麗價值).33 The ad started with an image of before and after the scene of the Miramar Resort on the Taitung coast that had been a key environmental battle. Next, we see before and after the controversial land dispute site of Tapu. Then we see before and after of a Formosa Plastics factory in Kaohsiung that has been the source of serious soil and water pollution. This is followed by a shop store scene and a chart showing the growing gap between GDP growth and stagnant wages and the alternative where they rise together. Viewers are next reminded of the recent food safety scandals involving melamine and plasticisers, and this is contrasted with what we can guess is organic soya bean milk. A leaking pipe symbolises the problems with the tax system, and by fixing it the GPT calls for a fair tax system. The final scene shows a couple kissing in the church in a samesex marriage ceremony. In other words, the GPT’s core themes of environmental

The 2016 GPT SDP Alliance  215 protection, social movement campaigns, food safety, labour rights and minority rights are all addressed in 52 seconds. The two other professionally produced GPT ads from 2016 focus on environmental pollution and GPT Co-Convenor Lee Ken-cheng. For instance, in the 96-second Sustainable Environment, Support the GPT SDP Alliance ad, the narrator is Lee. The camera follows the passenger’s view on the High Speed Railway’s first 90 seconds on leaving Kaohsiung.34 By showing the polluting petrochemical factories, it reminds viewers of the heavy price southern Taiwan pays for this kind of heavy industrial development. There were also a number of endorsements ads, featuring cultural figures such as the writer Hsiao Ye (小野) and the former NP politician Yao Li-ming.35 However, one of the most interesting ads shows a scene of a union leader standing outside the gates of China Shipbuilding Corporation’s Kaohsiung site, calling on his colleagues to give their party votes to the GPT.36 This labour union appeal was also very visible in a number of the GPT’s campaign events such as the pre-election weekend rally in Kaohsiung in which union delegations made up a large part of the audience. One issue that was raised in the gazette which did not appear in the GPT election ads was relations with China. In fact, this was something that did feature in a number of GPT campaign events, such as the human rights lawyer Lai Chung-chiang’s (賴中強) rally speeches. Lai had been a key figure in the fight against the CrossStrait Services Trade Agreement that led to the Sunflower occupation and was Convenor of the Economic Democracy Union. GPT SDP Alliance politicians were also prominent in protests against the meeting between Taiwan’s President Ma and China’s Xi Jinping in Singapore in November 2015 and even called for Ma to be impeached for breaching the constitution in not seeking legislative approval for the meeting.37 In other words, the Alliance was competing with other parties that advocated a cautious approach towards economic and political ties with China. With record numbers of openly gay candidates and its clear support for LGBT rights in its political communication, some observers viewed this as a core party appeal in 2016. This image was reinforced with the partnership with the SDP, which one anonymous GPT activist described to me as ‘The Lesbian Alliance.’ However, others felt that the issue had not been given sufficient prominence. GPT Hsinchu County councillor Chou Chiang-chieh, for instance, stated, was that issue the key issue for the GPT in 2016? That is my question. I did not see that. Because we put the representative from the LGBT group sixth (on the party list). Instead we focused on the first one, the environment and second one, labour unions.38 Victoria Hsu (許秀雯), who was the sixth ranked candidate on the GPT party list, attempted to use the campaign as a way to promote LGBT rights. She described how she campaigned in 2016 in these terms: I adopted a different method to other party list candidates, by regarding the whole of Taiwan as my electoral district. As we all know, large parties’ party

216  The Lee Ken-cheng era list candidates just sit at home and wait for the election results. I  went to many district election rallies, and I also went on a 28 day bus tour around Taiwan, giving talks, attending venues, linking up GPT local groups. I was in an intensive attempt to plead for votes. I wanted to prove that LGBT issues not only existed in the big cities, but also in rural areas. For instance, we had a seminar in Changhua, which attracted an audience too large for our venue. This showed that in comparison to other political issues gender equality and LGBT issues attract far more passionate reactions. The support for these issues was greater than general politicians’ expectations.39 However, like Chou, Hsu believed that placing her sixth on the party list showed that the GPT did not prioritise LGBT rights and instead put greater emphasis on environmental protection and labour unions. I will now briefly address a few of the Alliance’s district campaigns. Unsurprisingly, the focal point was Fan Yun’s campaign, as the DPP supported her. Nevertheless, the Alliance’s district candidates’ performances were far superior to 2012 and so deserve some attention. One such case was that of Jennifer Lu (呂欣潔) in Taipei City District 7, where Pan had stood in 2012. Lu managed to get 17,747 votes despite the fact that the DPP chose to back a KMT defector, Yang Shih-chiu (楊實秋), and in the end the KMT won by a narrow margin. According to Lu, she would have won if the DPP had backed her. As a leading figure in Taiwan’s LGBT movement, Lu wanted to use the campaign to promote her cause. But in my interview, it was clear she wanted to do things differently from earlier movement party campaigns, such as those by Raging Citizens. Lu explained, a lot of activists before, they did not want to win the election, they just wanted to promote their issues. Especially the small parties. But we definitely wanted to win. That was our final goal. So we needed to compromise more than previous candidates. We tried to find a balance between idealism and the reality.40 Lu had a mix of traditional and modern campaign methods. For instance, she frequently campaigned at the market and bought billboards and bus ads. Lu recalled how enthusiastic her mother became: I made several different films and videos and we did use YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. We printed out hard copy flyers to hand out door to door. We spent too much on that. In the last months of the campaign, my mother was like this, ‘we should buy this’ [Lu laughs here]. She wanted to put all the money in. I tried to stop her. She said ‘Don’t you want to win?’41 A second, surprisingly strong GPT campaign was in Tainan City District 4, where Yang Jhih-da got 9,075 votes. This is a DPP stronghold, and back in 2012 a previous GPT candidate in another Tainan district had won only 3,494. Yang had

The 2016 GPT SDP Alliance  217 been part of Liang Yi-chi’s campaign for city council in Kaohsiung in 2014 and accepted that he brought much of that experience into his campaign. According to Yang, if there was a difference, then my one was even more traditional. I put more stress on the campaign on the ground, we spent more time campaigning on the streets. We also devoted more to internet campaigning. The experience of Ko Wen-je in 2014 showed the importance of internet campaigning. We found this was quite effective.42 In a TED talk, Yang noted, so I was doing things that are not normal for a 23 year old. Campaigning for votes on the streets, chasing the garbage truck to speak to voters, campaigning with a small budget. We had to use some fun ways to let voters know Yang Jhih-da.43 Although Yang’s campaign was originally mainly aimed at boosting the overall GPT party list vote, he found that this changed over time during the campaign. Yang recalled how one side of my flyers was for the party vote and the other for myself. When I first agreed to stand it was not for myself. At the time the GPT SDP Alliance lacked candidates. But even before the Alliance, the GPT was seeking candidates to nominate. Teacher Lee Ken-cheng talked to me about this and we talked about whether to stand in Kaohsiung or Tainan. At the time we had a strategy in the GPT to have candidates to boost the party vote. So originally the goal was to raise the party vote. But things changed later. If you are standing and trying to raise funds, how can you say you are just standing to raise your party list vote? So my campaign strategy did change over time. At first it was for party list votes, but later my personal image became more of a focus.44 In his TED talk, Yang noted that ‘I was clear, I knew the campaign would be very hard, but I  wanted people to hear diverse issues, different voices, to see young people who had their own thinking and the ability to participate in politics.’45 However, one major challenge Yang and his team faced was the conservative Christian groups actively campaigning against LGBT rights. Yang explained, towards the end of the campaign, an anti LGBT party started to smear us. Although we were not talking about marriage equality, they had an antimarriage equality petition and called for a referendum. They tried to spread rumours that Yang Jhih-da supported decriminalising adult–child sex and promoted sexual abuse in schools. It was exhausting for us to deal with such attacks, as when we went to schools, it led parents to tell us to get out. Or to

218  The Lee Ken-cheng era say, ‘Get lost homosexual!’ It was not just for me but also to my team, some of whom were campaigning on the streets for the first time. Not everyone was ready for that kind of abuse on the streets. That was a big challenge and pressure for me in the campaign.46 Fan Yun’s campaign in Taipei City District 6 was the equivalent to Pan’s four years earlier, as again the DPP allowed a third party to challenge the KMT. Her campaign was better funded and more professional than Pan’s, and she did manage to generate higher levels of media attention. However, she also faced some similar problems; she was criticised by the DPP for not supporting Tsai openly but also heavily criticised by some GPT members for appearing together with Tsai Ing-wen at a lunchbox making event. Like Pan, Fan tried to avoid directly supporting the DPP. For instance, when asked if she supported Tsai, Fan explained it from the angle of her long experiences in Taiwan’s feminist movement, saying, ‘of course I would look forward to see a woman being elected the national leader as soon as possible, which would be a new milestone in Taiwan’s democracy.’47 This was Fan’s first election campaign, and it featured a combination of modern and traditional campaigning methods. In a post-election interview, she spoke fondly about the experience of campaigning in the markets, parks and temples. She tried to boost her campaign by seeking out the endorsement of a wide range of celebrities. Moreover, she even bought ads in newspapers, something almost unheard of among alternative party candidates. According to one estimate, she spent NT$162,000 on newspaper ads; for instance, she had a front page ad in the Liberty Times on January 12, 2016.48

Understanding the GPT’s failed breakthrough in 2016 As I discussed in Chapter 4, the 2016 national election results represented a serious setback for the GPT. Despite the organisational reforms, improved funding, more professional campaign and the alliance with the SDP, the party was only able to get 2.5 percent of the party list vote. The first place to look at to understand this perceived defeat is the changed party system and rival party approaches. As Wu Jieh-min predicted in late 2014, the new party system was very challenging not only for the third force overall but also particularly so for the GPT. In 2012, the GPT had the advantage of being the only true alternative party on the ballot. In contrast, in 2016 there was now much greater competition for party list votes. In 2012, there were only 11 parties competing on the party list; four years later, there were 18. Apart from numbers of party list competitors, what was more damaging was that the GPT now faced competition from rival movement parties, the NPP and Trees Party. Ho and Huang note how the movement parties had made major progress in gaining a combined total of 9.2 percent in 2016, though this was contested by the three parties (2016, 362–3). Naturally, the Trees Party also damaged the GPT in 2016, not only as a result of its 0.63 percent on the party list but also the negative image it gave of

The 2016 GPT SDP Alliance  219 the divided environmental movement. However, the NPP’s and DPP’s strategies hit the GPT harder. In the first half of 2015, it had looked like the GPT might be the strongest of the alternative parties. In a September 2015 survey (displayed in Table 4.15), the Alliance had a higher support rate than the NPP and the NP. But for a number of reasons, the NPP was able to run a much more competitive campaign. Firstly, the NPP adopted an effective hybrid issue strategy that incorporated both alternative and more traditional campaign appeals. To use Lucardie’s terms, it combined elements of both the purifier and the prophetic party. This is best exemplified by the NPP’s party list TV ad.49 One core theme was that it was the real representative of Taiwanese civil society. The ad thus showed images of its leaders in multiple social protests such as the Sunflower occupation, an anti-nuclear march and a LGBT rights parade. The ad showed one of their candidates, Huang Kuochang (黃國昌), who had been a key Sunflower leader, and the film director Ko I-cheng (柯一正), who had become associated with the anti-nuclear movement. In addition, the NPP also made more traditional national identity appeals. For instance, on the NPP’s website it listed the first of its three basic advocacies as ‘the NPP advocates normalizing the country’s status.’50 In other words, the NPP was making clear it believed in Taiwan independence. Similarly, its party list TV ad revealed it was prepared to play the anti-PRC card by showing its supporters protesting against the 2015 meeting between President Ma and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Thus, the NPP was using accommodative issue strategies to contest issue ownership of both the GPT and mainstream national identity-centred parties such as the TSU or DPP. Another major reason the NPP won seats was its open alliance with the DPP. In the party list ad, we see Huang on the stage with the DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen. In return for the NPP’s support of the DPP’s presidential campaign, the DPP left three districts for the NPP to contest directly against the KMT (Kwan and Fell 2020). This nomination cooperation was successful in that the NPP won all three seats and the party did not suffer the kind of internal criticism seen in the case of Pan’s cooperation with the DPP in 2012. In addition, Ho and Huang argue that the NPP had a major advantage over the GPT in its human and financial resources. They note that all three successful NPP district candidates had long since become charismatic and arguably good-looking celebrities, particularly popular among young voters, before deciding to join the election, while most of the SDP and TGP candidates struggled to attract media attention. (2017, 363) When I examined coverage in the United Daily News, I found the NPP had more than double the number of article mentions compared to the GPT in 2015, and this advantage was further magnified once the NPP entered parliament. Ho and Huang also note that the NPP was financially much stronger, with all three of its successful district candidates spending campaign budgets of over NT$10 million, while

220  The Lee Ken-cheng era they cite the highest GPT/SDP spender at NT$5  million (2017, 363). Although both the NPP and GPT mainly used internet campaigning, the NPP was also able to purchase traditional media advertising. The advertising analysis company Rainmaker estimated that the NPP spent NT$3,013,000 (mainly newspaper ads) on paid advertising.51 Although this was lower than smaller rival parties such as the NP, TSU, PFP, Minkuotang (MKT), Faith and Hope Alliance (FHA) and even the Chinese Unification Promotion Party (CUPP), it was far higher compared to the GPT’s NT$149,000 (radio ads) (Fell 2016). The NPP was attracting not only potential GPT supporters but also potential candidates. GPT SDP Alliance party list candidate Victoria Hsu described one such case: Kawlo Iyun Pacidal, used to be a member of the GPT. Kawlo also noticed that the GPT would not prioritize aboriginal issues. She was also very disappointed, and so were her supporters. So she chose to leave the GPT and joined the NPP.52 As I touched upon in Chapter 1, what made this especially damaging for the GPT was that the party had agreed to nominate Kawlo and already taken her official campaign photographs.53 However, the NPP’s offer to place her at number one on its party list was enough to persuade her to switch parties. The electoral environment was made even more hostile as a result of the DPP also adopting accommodative issue and nomination strategies. Ho and Huang note how, on its party list, the DPP deliberately nominated ‘an impressive snapshot of Taiwan’s contemporary social movements: leaders in food safety, environmentalism, human rights, feminism, rural preservation, disability, labour, and social enterprises’ (2017, 363). Moreover, this was highlighted in a number of DPP TV and newspaper ads, particularly in the final two weeks of the campaign.54 What made this even more damaging for the GPT was that the DPP had nominated two former GPT Co-Convenors, Yu Wan-ju (2012–15) and Chen Man-li (2007–8), as well as its former 1996 candidate, Wang Jung-chang, and first-term Central Review Committee member Wu Yu-chin (吳玉琴). In a post-election interview, it was clear that Lee admitted this DPP nomination strategy did have an effect, as the DPP put forward a few legislative candidates who have a background in social movements which made them more approachable to civil society. Of course the Green Party’s policies are more clear and progressive than the DPP, there are still too few voters who know what we advocate.55 Fan Yun also agreed that the DPP’s social movement nomination and appeals undermined the GPT SDP Alliance campaign in the final week but noted that it showed the DPP felt threatened by the way progressive voters were switching away from the DPP to the Alliance.56 The DPP also attempted to contest the GPT’s issue ownership on certain social movement-linked issues. For instance,

The 2016 GPT SDP Alliance  221 the DPP came out openly in support of same-sex marriage in the 2016 campaign. Tsai Ing-wen issued a number of ads on this issue, though interestingly they were only placed on the internet rather than on TV.57 GPT SDP Alliance candidate and LGBT rights activist Jennifer Lu recalls that when Tsai issued this ad, yes, I  was very surprised. As they had not contacted us before. Never. Of course some of their team members in the campaign team are from the LGBT community and also. . . . I know they are there but the way they chose to reveal this. I was surprised about that.58

The GPT’s campaign in 2016 Despite the challenges posed by competing parties, the GPT still stood a real chance of entering parliament in 2016. This meant that the kind of campaign it was able to run would be critical. In many ways, this was the best funded and designed GPT campaign to date. With local party branches, elected councillors and active candidates (both party list and district), the party had much greater presence on the ground compared to 2012. The campaign budget was also clearly far greater than any previous year, as it was able to purchase radio and bus advertisements in a number of locations. The party’s website, YouTube channel and social media presence was also far superior to four years earlier. After the election, Lee noted how ‘the ratio of our supporters using Facebook is quite high. Commentators have joked that on Facebook the Green Party appears to be the largest party because our supporters turn up everywhere.’59 Among the party’s three more professionally made election ads, the Change ad was especially well received and was probably one of the best ads of the overall 2016 campaign. The GPT SDP Alliance also managed to bring in record numbers of party endorsements during the campaign, and many of these figures had not previously endorsed party election campaigns before, such as literary icon and painter Chiang Hsun (蔣勳). The campaign rallies the GPT ran, such as on January 10, 2016 in Taipei and Kaohsiung, were also two of the largest in the party’s history. Having joined both these last weekend rallies, I was caught up in the enthusiasm that the GPT had a real chance. In short, the GPT was far more visible on both the ground and online than in any previous election. However, after the election, Fan Yun, though, agreeing they were special rallies, admitted it was mainly people from the cultural sector. From the experience of the last election, I feel we need more popular people. We know Chiang Hsun but if you go to the market, they won’t know him. Probably more people know Fan Yun than Chiang Hsun.60 In other words, Fan believed the party needed to bring in endorsements from the kind of people that would have allowed them to expand their support base beyond their usual voters. A friend that had also been to the NPP rally told me it was much

222  The Lee Ken-cheng era larger and contrasted the ages of the audiences, describing the NPP’s as mainly Sunflowers and the GPT’s as the middle-aged Wild Lily generation. Another major element of the GPT campaign was its candidates. These gave voters a clear sense of what issues the party was prioritising and would have an impact on the way the campaign evolved in 2016. For example, the nomination of Chang Li-fen, Secretary General of the China Telecom Union, at the top place on the party list signified the GPT’s new prioritisation of labour issues. Chang was one of the most active of the party list candidates in her campaigning, and the labour alliance was especially visible in the Kaohsiung GPT pre-election rally. It is likely that this new approach brought in new supporters to the GPT, but its impact should not be exaggerated. The GPT’s Labour branch was located in Kaohsiung together with a large local branch and Lee’s NGO Citizen of the Earth, but the GPT’s vote share there was only at the national average of 2.5 percent. One of the promoters of the labour union alliance, Chiu Yu-bin, believed it was a good start, saying, ‘this is also the first time for many GPT members to touch upon labour issues. It is a positive thing but whether it can be continued, it needs to be observed.’61 However, as we will see in the next chapter, this was something that the party was not able to consolidate, and the departure of Chang Li-fen in 2018 marks the end of that alliance. Often the GPT struggled to find enough candidates, leading it to make lastminute nominations with some candidates not fully understanding the party’s values or without the political strength to campaign effectively. This was different in 2016 because there was much more competition for who would be on the party list. While in the past this had been determined internally, Wu Min-hsuan proposed using a transparent and democratic nomination system to resolve the problem. However, when I asked Chiu Hua-mei what she would change in the campaign if she could go back in time, she explained, ‘we should not have had such rigid nomination procedures and nomination committee, which ended up hindering the party’s operation. The inflexibility caused so much damage to the party.’62 This was how she described the operation of the new system, every decision making was such a tiring process. Come to think of it, for such a small party like ours, nomination should be done through negotiation. We were tied up by the methods and procedures we created. We had gone through numerous meetings. I thought to myself if I could have been freed from all these and used the time to write some promotional articles or to go on streets to win voters or to put some effort in fund raising, that would have been really nice.63 Since the GPT was perceived as having a real chance to get candidates elected, much of the focus was on who would be placed first and second on the party list. As mentioned earlier, the placement decision was enough to push Kawlo to switch to the NPP. When in August 2014 Lee Ken-cheng announced he would be standing for election in 2016, there was a positive response. However, placing Lee second on the party list was challenged by some. As Chiu Hua-mei explained, ‘I told

The 2016 GPT SDP Alliance  223 you before I personally did not want him to be the candidate, as it would appear that he had created a platform for himself to be elected.’64 A number of respondents felt that Lee would have been better off taking a different, more coordinating role in the campaign. One such voice was Lin Cheng-hsiu. He argued, ‘Ken-cheng is not suitable. He can be the campaign planner. He should have been the overall campaign manager. He should have gone to visit people that really want to run a serious campaign.’65 Instead, Lin felt the party should have nominated candidates that could really expand the party’s vote reach. He explained how, at the time, he had proposed Lee approach the writer Liu Li-er (劉黎兒), who writes erotic fiction but has also been involved in anti-nuclear activism. According to Lin, if you can find people that are already recognized by society but whom people had not expected to stand for election. In Japan they are called assassins. The LDP used them to remove many of their rivals. They are well known and have similar ideals to you. This will allow you to increase your visibility in society with each election. That is the way to win.66 Unsurprisingly, Lee did not take up Lin’s suggestion. Instead, the GPT devoted much of the campaign communication to Lee himself, with him being the focal point in two out of the party’s three professionally made ads in 2016. However, the effectiveness of this focus can be questioned. Even Lee himself noted that ‘in my experience as a candidate of the Green–Socialist coalition although I’m well known in social movement circles, I’m not a well-known political figure among the general public.’67 The GPT candidate in 2016 that inspired the most controversy was Victoria Hsu, who was placed sixth on the party list. Hsu is a leading figure in Taiwan’s LGBT rights movement. She is the co-founder and CEO of the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights, one of the most important LGBT rights groups in the country. Hsu had decided to join the election to promote marriage equality, especially in the face of the conservative backlash led by the newly established Faith and Hope Alliance. However, Hsu believed that GPT’s vote could have been much higher if she had been placed higher on the party list. She explained, in fact the LGBT vote went to the DPP. People who supported LGBT issues originally wanted to vote for the GPT SDP Alliance, but if they did it would be a vote for the first two party list candidates.  .  .  . LGBT supporters did not have the confidence to vote for those two people [Chang and Lee]. There were discussions on the internet saying that they would rather vote for the DPP, as Yu Mei-nu (尤美女) would be elected. And Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) as well. LGBT supporters had more confidence in the DPP’s party list than the GPT SDP Alliance’s, even though those two DPP pro LGBT candidates are both straight.68 However, there was another side to this story. While Hsu had some strong supporters in the GPT and LGBT rights movement, another faction of the LGBT

224  The Lee Ken-cheng era movement was strongly opposed to her. Chiu Hua-mei noted that this also affected their relationship with the SDP, as some of their candidates were also very critical of Hsu’s past movement record.69 Peng explained how some in the LGBT circles said if you nominate Victoria Hsu, we won’t vote GPT. Many said this. So we had to balance the two sides that support and hate her. After much negotiation she was ranked number 6. I should say there was an internal voting procedure and in the end she was ranked number 6. So those that hated her could just about accept this. It was unlikely that the sixth would get elected [into parliament].70 A nomination case that best epitomises the failure of the GPT to break through in 2016 was that of Robin Winkler. He was one of the best-known figures in the GPT and by 2014 had completed his required ten years of citizenship to allow him to stand for election. He had been offered a place to stand for the Trees Party in 2014 but instead stayed loyal to the GPT. The plan was that Winkler would stand in Taipei City District 1; given that neither the DPP nor the NPP had yet nominated, there was a chance that he could be competitive if all three parties supported him. Since Winkler had close ties with figures in both the DPP and NPP, this was a real possibility. Early in the campaign, it was clear the DPP was willing to leave some districts to third force candidates. Initially, Winkler’s campaign developed quite well and his social media campaign built momentum. There also appeared to be a possibility that the DPP and NPP could similarly back the GPT candidate in New Taipei City District 11, as the DPP had delayed nominating there. In this case, the GPT had nominated the former Sunflower Movement leader Tseng Po-yu, and her campaign was also looking promising. However, Winkler announced in June 2015 that he was temporarily withdrawing his bid for GPT nomination. It would appear that the chances of the DPP supporting him were damaged as a result of Lee leading a protest outside the DPP headquarters in late April 2015.71 Winkler recalled that then [Lee] Ken-cheng and [Hsu] Bo-jen (許博任) . . . they go down to the DPP headquarters and say there is no way we will ever cooperate with the DPP, they were protesting against what they said was DPP interference in the Third Force. That diminished our ability to approach the DPP.72 In addition, it is clear that Lee did not fully back Winkler to say the least. Winkler explained that there are some things written on Facebook saying that this was Lee Kencheng’s way of getting me out of the party because I  was opposed to the alliance. I was not really opposed to it, but there was clarity needed, it was sucking up resources that the local candidates were not getting.73 In the end, Lee’s mishandling of the Winkler candidacy was extremely costly for the party. It meant that the GPT not only lost the possibility of winning in

The 2016 GPT SDP Alliance 225 Winkler’s and Tseng’s districts, but also was again largely absent from Taipei City in 2016, as the Alliance’s candidates there were all SDP figures. However, most damaging was that the GPT had lost one of its most valuable figures, someone who had played a crucial role in the party’s development over the previous decade. In order to have a party list, the Alliance had to nominate ten district candidates, a financial challenge shared by the other smaller challenger parties. However, Chen Shang-chih felt that Alliance made a mistake in how it distributed the resources between its candidates and contrasted this with the NPP’s approach. ‘What NPP did was to actually have three real candidates and the other seven fake ones. They spent the resources on those three candidates. Our resources were divided equally on ten candidates. That was a big strategic mistake.’74 It appeared that the GPT was not prepared to take an approach that would have meant sacrificing some candidates in order to concentrate resources on the most viable districts.

The Alliance effect and Fan Yun’s lunchbox Given the controversy over the alliance with the SDP, it is not surprising that there were tensions between the two sides during the actual campaign. Although the Alliance had been established, they kept separate party headquarters and to a large extent continued operating as two separate parties and campaigns. The SDP’s Chen Shang-chih recalled how ‘we had a working meeting [with the GPT] once a week but our candidates had already their own campaigning offices in their electoral districts so that weekly Alliance meetings were used to decide on trivial matters.’75 GPT members and some Central Executive Committee members frequently criticised their SDP allies for practices in their campaigns. Chen recollected how GPT members were often critical of the elite background of the SDP’s candidates, that some of whom were from rich families and had almost all graduated from the elite Taipei First Girls High School.76 SDP district candidates were prepared to prioritise vote maximisation to a higher degree than their GPT colleagues by seeking out endorsements from controversial figures. For instance, SDP candidate Lee Yen-jong was criticised by GPT members for meeting PFP presidential candidate Soong Chu-yu in December 2015 to discuss future cooperation.77 Both Fan and Chen were critical of the way the GPT basically gave up its district candidates to focus on the party list. Fan stated, ‘I do not think that is the right strategy. The GPT SDP Alliance’s biggest problem was its visibility. The better you do in the district, the more well-known you would become.’78 She believed that the constant GPT criticism of the SDP was unfair, as they made a substantial contribution to the Alliance’s performance. She cited a survey that showed the vast majority of media reports on the GPT SDP Alliance were actually about the SDP’s district candidates.79 The problematic operation of the GPT SDP Alliance is best illustrated in Fan Yun’s candidacy in Taipei City District 6. This is one of the KMT’s safest seats, which in 2012 it had won with a 30 percent margin. Like the Pan case in 2012, the DPP did not nominate a candidate, but Fan ran a much more competitive

226  The Lee Ken-cheng era campaign than Pan. She managed to narrow the gap down to only 10  percent. She recalled that halfway through her campaign, she began to feel she really had a chance to win, but the GPT people did not believe I had a chance of winning. They thought I might do as badly as Pan Han-sheng that time. They felt what mattered was the party list vote, the party list vote. It would have been easier to catch up in Taan District than the Party list.80 Ultimately, Fan believed the problems in managing the delicate balance with the GPT and DPP were what prevented her from winning. How to gain visibility was central to Fan’s campaign aim of expanding her support base to be competitive. She therefore actively sought out media exposure opportunities and political celebrity endorsements. By far the most controversial case was the Fan Yun lunchbox incident. On this occasion, Fan joined the DPP’s presidential candidate, Tsai Ing-wen, at a food safety charity event, in which they were pictured together making lunchboxes.81 Many GPT members were furious with Fan, as they believed she had broken the Alliance agreement not to endorse any presidential candidates. Their reactions were similar to when Pan had shared a stage with Tsai Ing-wen in 2012. Since Fan was standing in a constituency in which the DPP had not nominated, she needed to reach out to traditional DPP supporters. For Peng, though, the two cases were quite different as, unlike Pan, Fan was not joining Tsai at a campaign rally and did not openly call on voters to support Tsai.82 In an interview a year later, it was clear that Fan had been hurt not only by the GPT members’ attacks but also the way the GPT leadership handled this incident.83 She felt many still had ‘Pan Han-sheng trauma.’84 However, Fan noted that her case was different, as she had consulted with Lee Ken-cheng and the GPT had discussed this internally and agreed so long as she did not directly say she supported Tsai Ing-wen. However, the event ended up backfiring due to the way the GPT handled it. GPT members and some Central Executive Committee members harshly attacked Fan, but the GPT party did not publicly explain they had approved the event. Instead, the GPT issued a news release that evening criticising Tsai Ing-wen’s policies. Fan tried unsuccessfully to prevent the GPT issuing the release that night. The outcome was that the pro-DPP media attacked her. Fan explained, ‘Taiwan’s media is terrible, do you know how they reported that press release? They said we were making lunchboxes in the morning and criticising Tsai Ing-wen in the evening.’85 Some GPT members also felt that the way the party responded to Fan’s campaign was extremely damaging to the overall campaign. Chiu Yu-bin noted we were already under great pressure running the election and we still had to spend time and effort replying to the numerous queries from the GPT party members and even Central Executive Committee members about Fan Yun’s lunchbox packing with Tsai event. I  spent a lot of time on internal

The 2016 GPT SDP Alliance  227 communication. The point was all the internal communication turned out to be useless.86 When I asked Fan what she would have done differently if she could go back in time, she replied, I would have persuaded the GPT to let us join Xiao-ying [Tsai’s nickname] on the stage. With that maybe we would have won in Taan District. If they disagreed then we would just not cooperate with the GPT and we’d just concentrate on the district elections.87 She believed that by appearing to not fully back Tsai Ing-wen, she had lost some DPP voters, and in fact some DPP pundits even encouraged their supporters to vote for the independent candidate Chou Fang-ju (周芳如). However, there were also other candidates competing with Fan for the anti-KMT protest vote, such as the Trees Party and the veteran labour activist Cheng Tsun-chi (鄭村棋), standing for the PDF. This desire to gain DPP support may also explain why Fan decided to join the book launch event of the DPP’s caucus convenor Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) on January 1, 2016. Although this incident is less well known, it also caused a similar storm in the Alliance. Chiu Hua-mei recalled the response in the GPT, noting that even a week before the election, members were still fighting against each other. Some were extremely mad at Fan Yun’s attending Ker Chien-ming’s book launch. Some even wanted Fan Yun to resign as one of the GPT SDP Alliance’s Convenors. Some said this move right before the election would harm the party greatly. They then asked the GPT to give a public press release about Fan’s action.88 Even though Chiu Hua-mei did not fully agree with Fan’s strategies to gain publicity, she did feel that the way some Central Executive Committee members were more focused on attacking colleagues undermined the party’s campaign. She explained how ‘at the end the party Secretary General [Hsu] Bo-jen asked them to please focus on the election first and said he would resign after the election, no matter what the election outcome.’89 In short, the way the GPT handled its relations with its ally the SDP also severely undermined the Alliance’s campaign.

Chou Tzu-yu effect The Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜) incident was perhaps the single most talked about event in the 2016 election campaign. The political scientist Wu Chung-li (吳重禮) described it as ‘the straw that broke the KMT’s back’ (Wu 2016, 411). At the time, Chou Tzu-yu was a Taiwanese teenage member of a popular Korean pop band. She had been criticised in China as being a Taiwan independence supporter for having appeared on a television show waving a Republic of China flag. Fearing

228  The Lee Ken-cheng era this would damage their access to the Chinese market, the band’s management company then released a video of Chou apologising and saying ‘there is only one China, the two sides of the Strait are one, and I have always felt proud to be Chinese’ (Wu 2016, 411). The news broke on the day before the election and was widely believed to have been especially influential on the younger voters’ decisions (Wu, 412). Although much of the media and academic attention has focused on the way this damaged an already weak KMT campaign, evidence suggests it had an equally negative effect on the GPT. In a post-election interview, Co-Convenor Lee Ken-cheng explained that the Chou Tzu-yu incident affected voting behavior, causing citizens to prioritise a party that they think has the most strength in confronting China, and concluded perhaps it’s still the DPP. So many votes that would have gone to the Green Party coalition went instead to the DPP on that basis.90 Chiu Yu-bin believed it was not just the incident itself that mattered but the GPT’s inability to respond to this crisis. He recalled how ‘we heard from our media friends that no action towards Chou Tzu-yu incident caused us to lose 1–1.5% of the vote share, which went to the NPP or DPP or TSU.’91 Chiu Hua-mei recalled that the problem was that all the party’s leading figures were out doing last-minute campaigning in the streets, and no one was left in the party office that was able to respond to the breaking news. She lamented how ‘we did not respond to such a big issue in time. We did not have proper crisis management SOP at hand.’92 Despite the fact that the GPT has a clear position supporting Taiwan’s de facto independence that is not any weaker than that of the DPP, its prioritisation of other issues meant that rival parties were perceived by many voters as stronger on China.

Trees Party’s first national election Compared to 2014, the Trees Party had a much worse electoral performance in 2016. Although the more competitive party system contributed to this setback, the Trees Party’s own strategy was equally damaging. In the face of this new competitive environment, Sheng explained that ‘originally the Trees Party wanted a party alliance, but we were not able to do this.’93 While the GPT hoped to broaden its support through the alliance with the SDP, the Trees Party was unable to persuade any other parties to take it as a serious partner. Perhaps due to the experience of working with Pan in 2012 and the Trees Party’s initial performance in 2014, the DPP was not prepared to offer it a district to contest against the KMT. The Lee-led GPT refused to have anything to do with the Trees Party. The same was true of both the NPP and SDP, as the Trees Party nominated in the districts where they had their most competitive candidates. For instance, the NPP was annoyed that the Trees Party nominated a strong candidate in Taipei City District 5, where the NPP’s rock star candidate Freddy Lim was in a very tight race with a veteran KMT incumbent.

The 2016 GPT SDP Alliance  229 The Trees Party also suffered from an erosion of its resource base after 2014. Sheng believes that one of the party’s problems was that it was too reliant on a single donor and thus did not develop an institutionalised fundraising system. He contrasted this with how ‘the NPP, SDP and GPT established better fundraising systems. They put a lot of effort into their fundraising systems.’94 The party therefore actually had a lower campaign budget in 2016 than 2014. Equally damaging was the loss of the party’s human resources. Some of the Youth Occupy Politics group had fallen out with the Protect the Trees Alliance faction of the party and had been expelled just before or after the 2014 elections. One such example was the Chichi mayor, Chen Chi-heng, who had been expelled from the party in the summer of 2015. In addition, Sheng recalled how other parties poached a number of the party’s well-known members and former candidates at this stage. The Trees Party even lost its most popular candidate from 2014, Lin Chia-yu, over a nomination dispute. Lin had originally planned to stand in the 2016 in Taipei City District 5, but the party persuaded her to withdraw so they could instead nominate You Jui-min (尤瑞敏), an activist who had been fighting for justice over the suspicious death of her son in the army. This decision led Lin Chia-yu to leave the Trees Party for the SDP. As is often the case in small parties, the Trees Party suffered from factional power struggles. The basis of this divide lay in the two groups who formed the Trees Party in 2014, the Youth Occupy Politics and Protect the Trees Alliance. Sheng explained how the former group felt at the time, I and Chiu Bo-wei, the core among the Youth Occupy Politics wanted to make a distinction between the young and middle aged generation of the party. But we felt that we could no longer go along with the middle aged generation’s approach.95 One issue on which the two core factional groups disagreed on was how to approach the 2016 election. While the older faction wanted to nominate a party list with the required minimum of ten district candidates, Sheng and other younger activists had doubts on this approach. One problem was it would result in a life and death struggle with the GPT, as it would severely undermine the GPT’s party list hopes. Moreover, as Sheng explained, we did not have the resources to run a national campaign. We’d lost our funder. His money had been spent. Out of his 7 million, only 1.8 was returned from candidate deposits. Elections are war and in war you need to be pragmatic. How can you go into battle if you cannot have the basic operation of the party?96 The outcome of the 2016 election was disastrous for the Trees Party. If the party had been less ambitious and focused its resources on one or two districts, perhaps it could have been competitive and more attractive as a potential alliance partner.

230  The Lee Ken-cheng era

Conclusion The reforms brought in by Lee Ken-cheng allowed the GPT to run its best funded and most professional campaigns in 2014 and 2016. However, the party’s failure to break into parliament was followed by bitter recriminations against Lee and his leadership team. Naturally, party system factors contributed to the GPT’s failed breakthrough. The arrival of rival movement-linked parties, especially the NPP, took away many potential GPT voters. Moreover, the DPP’s accommodative issue and nomination strategies were also damaging, particularly nominating former GPT Co-Convenor Yu Wan-ju. In other words, the GPT faced much more challenging party competition than four years earlier. Nevertheless, I have tried to argue in this chapter that the most important reasons for the failed breakthrough lie in factors internal to the party. These prevented it getting the right balance between vote maximisation and staying true to its core party values. One key internal problem lay in the party’s emphasis on inner-party democracy. When I asked Chiu Hua-mei what she would have done differently, she replied, ‘first I would ask our party members from the beginning to give us the right to act and respond quickly.’97 She felt that ‘we were defeated by our own organization. Our strength was consumed largely by our own party.’98 Chen Shang-chih summed up by saying, according to my observation, GPT was a very odd group – everyone could have a say and everyone had the right to overthrow a decision. They wanted to promote direct democracy but they did not have a good mechanism for democratic decision making. . . . Every time the GPT would make a decision they would hold a party member congress to discuss it and then fail to make a decision.99 As we saw in the 2016 campaign, the party’s inability to make quick decisions and to respond to campaign events seriously damaged its campaign. A further damaging factor was that Lee’s efforts to reform and control the party’s direction resulted in the departure or marginalisation of a number of figures who had made a long-term contribution to the party, such as Pan Han-sheng, Robin Winkler and Yu Wan-ju. Some interviewees have argued that the Lee era GPT was losing its diversity. Back in 2014, Chang Yu-ching noted that the NGO nature of the party was making its operation too rigid and harder to appeal to different electoral markets. She explained that ‘political parties can be idealistic but you must be able to tolerate imperfections. Otherwise you should set up a religious group.’100 Again, as we have seen in this chapter, the party struggled to expand its support base beyond what had now become a more competitive market for social movement linked voters. Lastly, this chapter has shown how the GPT suffered from the way it handled relations with other parties. Not only was it unable to bring the NPP into the 2016 third force alliance, it also poisoned the relationship with the SDP. This

The 2016 GPT SDP Alliance  231 undermined the overall Alliance campaign, Fan’s district campaign and also the prospects of post-2016 cooperation. Although the GPT insisted on keeping its distance from the DPP, it also handled this relationship poorly. Its attacks on the DPP ultimately ruled out the possibility of the DPP leaving Winkler and Tseng Po-yu to stand against the KMT and damaged Fan’s ability to win enough support to win in Taan. A more tactful approach to relations with the DPP could have brought the GPT SDP Alliance its first national seats.

Notes 1 Wu Jieh-min, GPT Taipei Post-Election Review Meeting, 21 December 2014. 2 Abraham Gerber, ‘Greens, Social Democrats to Cooperate,’ Taipei Times, 18 August 2015, 3. 3 GPT, Facebook post, 20 August  2019, www.facebook.com/TaiwanGreenParty/ posts/10157812287341159. 4 Chiu Hua-mei, 4 January 2014. 5 Chen Shang-chih, 3 January 2017. 6 Chiu Hua-mei, 4 January 2014. 7 The Journalist, ‘Fan Yun and Lee ken-cheng Join to Promote the Merger of the TCU and GPT’ (范雲聯手李根政　推公民組合綠黨合併), 11 November 2014. 8 Those he rejected included the NP, TSU, PFP, Radical Wings, PDF and the Trees Party. 9 By this stage, the Fan led-TCU is essentially what would become the SDP. 10 Lee Ken-cheng, 4 January 2015. 11 Chen Shang-chih, 3 January 2017. 12 Fan Yun, 5 January 2017. 13 I had first written the conference paper and submitted it to a journal in 2015, prior to the creation of the Alliance that year. By the time the paper had been conditionally accepted after a lengthy revise and resubmission process, with four cases already, it was too long to add another merger attempt. 14 Lee Ken-cheng, 4 January, 2015. 15 Peng Yen-wen, 14 January 2016. 16 Chang Yu-ching, 27 December, 2014. 17 Robin Winkler, 8 January 2016. 18 Chen Shang-chih, 3 January 2017. 19 Chiu Hua-mei, 2 January 2017. 20 Robin Winkler, 8 January 2016. 21 Chiu Hua-mei, 2 January 2017. 22 Lin Cheng-hsiu, 14 September 2018. 23 Yu Wan-ju, 3 January 2017. 24 Chang Yu-ching, 27 December 2014. 25 Robin Winkler, 8 January 2016. 26 Ibid. 27 Chiu Yu-bin and Chiu Hua-mei, 2 January 2017. 28 Abraham Gerber, ‘Greens, Social Democrats to Cooperate,’ Taipei Times, 18 August 2015, 3. 29 Ibid. 30 Taipei Times, ‘Elections: Candidates Going to Great Lengths to Attract Attention,’ Taipei Times, 13 January 2016, 3. 31 www.youtube.com/watch?v=--1FYqN19NU. 32 www.facebook.com/treesparty2014/videos/509525135887716/. 33 www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9z6iaXqNao. 34 www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4GpkExKJaI.

232  The Lee Ken-cheng era 35 www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwk0f3qWl8U. 36 www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VPbrjVFFzU&t=13s. 37 Abraham Gerber, ‘Third-Force Parties Rally Against Ma-Xi Meeting,’ Taipei Times, 5 November 2015, 1. 38 Chou Chiang-chieh, 4 April 2017. 39 Victoria Hsu, 9 June 2016. 40 Jennifer Lu, 8 February 2018. 41 Ibid. 42 Yang Jhih-da, 5 November 2019. 43 Yang Jhih-da, TEDxTainan, 10 April 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGz0Bp5PFx A&list=PLwDLSJRoHNLAjkVUArWwAFScQcOic6o8K. 44 Yang Jhih-da, 5 November 2019. 45 Yang Jhih-da, TEDxTainan, 10 April 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGz0Bp5PFx A&list=PLwDLSJRoHNLAjkVUArWwAFScQcOic6o8K. 46 Ibid. 47 Loa Iok-sin, ‘Tsai and Fan Cook Side-by-Side at Taipei Event,’ Taipei Times, 13 November 2015, 3. 48 Fan Yun ad, Liberty Times, 12 January 2016, 1. 49 www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9z6iaXqNao. 50 www.newpowerparty.tw/proposal. 51 This figure does not include individual candidate advertising spending. 52 Victoria Hsu, 9 June 2016. 53 Wang Hau-yu, ‘Kawlo Iyun Pacidal Once Betrayed the GPT and Now Wants to Jump Ship to the DPP,’ Up Media, 31 July  2019, www.upmedia.mg/news_info. php?SerialNo=68317. 54 For example, see DPP front page newspaper ad, Liberty Times, 8 January 2016, A1. 55 www.globalgreens.org/news/taiwan-green-party-2016-elections-qa-ken-cheng-leeformer-party-co-chair. 56 Fan Yun, 5 January 2017. 57 www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLv3wL73RnM&t=8s. In contrast, in Tsai’s much analysed ‘Walking with the Children’ TV election ad, there is only a fleeting scene showing youngsters holding pro LGBT flags. 58 Jennifer Lu, 8 February 2018. 59 Global Greens, ‘Taiwan Green Party 2016 Elections: Q&A with Ken-cheng Lee, Former Party Co-Chair,’ 24 May  2016, www.globalgreens.org/news/ taiwan-green-party-2016-elections-qa-ken-cheng-lee-former-party-co-chair. 60 Fan Yun, 5 January 2017. 61 Chiu Yu-bin, 2 January 2017. 62 Chiu Hua-mei, 2 January 2017. 63 Ibid. 64 Ibid. 65 Lin Cheng-hsiu, 14 September 2018. 66 Ibid. 67 Global Greens, ‘Taiwan Green Party 2016 Elections: Q&A with Ken-cheng Lee, Former Party Co-Chair,’ 24 May  2016, www.globalgreens.org/news/taiwan-greenparty-2016-elections-qa-ken-cheng-lee-former-party-co-chair. 68 Victoria Hsu, 9 June 2016. 69 Chiu Hua-mei, 2 January 2017. 70 Peng Yen-wen, 14 January 2016. 71 UDN Evening News, 30 April 2015, B1 (Taipei). 72 Robin Winkler, 8 January 2016. Hsu was GPT Secretary General at the time. 73 Robin Winkler, 8 January 2016. 74 Chen Shang-chih, 3 January 2017. 75 Ibid.

The 2016 GPT SDP Alliance  233 76 Ibid. 77 ‘Asking Soong Chu-yu’s Advice: Lee Yen-jung Cross-Party Cooperation Can Make Taiwan Even Better,’ ET Today, 8 December  2015, www.ettoday.net/ news/20151208/609627.htm. 78 Fan Yun, 5 January 2017. 79 Ibid. 80 Ibid. 81 Loa Iok-sin, ‘Tsai and Fan Cook Side-by-Side at Taipei Event,’ Taipei Times, 13 November 2015, 3. 82 Peng Yen-wen, 14 January 2016. 83 Fan Yun, 5 January 2017. 84 Ibid. 85 Ibid. 86 Chiu Yu-bin, 2 January 2017. 87 Fan Yun, 5 January 2017. 88 Chiu Hua-mei, 2 January 2017. 89 Ibid. 90 Lee Ken-cheng, ‘Taiwan Green Party 2016 Elections: Q&A with Ken-cheng Lee, Former Party Co-Chair,’ Global Greens, www.globalgreens.org/news/ taiwan-green-party-2016-elections-qa-ken-cheng-lee-former-party-co-chair. 91 Chiu Yu-bin, 2 January 2017. 92 Chiu Hua-mei, 2 January 2017. 93 Ibid. 94 Sheng I-che, 12 September 2018. 95 Ibid. 96 Ibid. 97 Chiu Hua-mei, 2 January 2017. 98 Ibid. 99 Chen Shang-chih, 3 January 2017. 100 Chang Yu-ching, 27 December 2014.

References Belanger, E. and J-F. Godbout. 2010. ‘Why Do Parties Merge? The Case of the Conservative Party of Canada.’ Parliamentary Affairs, 63(1): 41–65. Coffe, H. and R. Torenvlied. 2008. ‘Explanatory Factors for the Merger of Political Parties’ (CSD Working Paper). Center for the Study of Democracy, University of California Irvine. Fell, Dafydd. 2016. ‘Small Parties in Taiwan’s 2016 National Elections: A Limited Breakthrough?’ American Journal of Chinese Studies, 23(1): 41–58. Fell, Dafydd. 2017. ‘Merger and Takeover Attempts in Taiwanese Party Politics.’ Issues and Studies. An International Quarterly on China, Taiwan, and East Asian Affairs, 53(4). Ho, Ming-sho and Chun-hao Huang. 2017. ‘Movement Parties in Taiwan, 1987–2016.’ Asian Survey, 57(2): 343–367. Kwan, Tommy Chung Yin and Dafydd Fell. 2020. ‘The Relationship between Mainstream and Movement Parties in Taiwan: Case Studies of the New Power Party (NPP) and the Green Party Taiwan-Social Democratic Party Alliance (GPT/SDP).’ In David Chiavacci, Simona Grano, and Julia Obinger (eds.), Civil Society and the State in Democratic East Asia: Between Entanglement and Contention in Post High Growth. Amsterdam University Press, 167–186. Nachman, Lev. 2020. ‘From Sunflowers to Suits: How Spatial Openings Affect Movement Party Formation.’ In Thomas Gold and Sebastian Veg (eds.), Sunflowers and Umbrellas: Social

234  The Lee Ken-cheng era Movements, Expressive Practices, and Political Culture in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Berkeley: University of California Press, 200–227. Rigger, Shelley. 2001. From Opposition to Power: Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Wu, Chung-li. 2016. ‘Games Without Frontiers, War Without Tears? The Process of Campaigning in the 2016 Taiwanese General Elections.’ American Journal of Chinese Studies, 23(1): 25–40.

Part VI

The Wang Hau-yu era 2016–2020

13 A new model of local election campaigning in 2018 Winning or selling its soul?

Aftermath of the 2016 defeat In the past, the GPT just campaigned on ideals, and it has wasted too many resources in this way, ‘this time we are not just campaigning on ideals, we are campaigning to get elected.’1 This was how the GPT Co-Convenor Wang Hauyu described the party’s past and goals for the next round of elections in 2018. There were echoes of Lee Ken-cheng’s controversial 2014 critique of the old GPT (discussed in Chapter 3). It is not certain whether Wang’s remarks were meant as a criticism of the Lee and Pan era GPT, but Wang undoubtedly wanted to see a radically different style of party operation. For some, this meant the GPT was becoming a professional party that could compete with mainstream parties, but for others it meant the party was selling its soul. Although Wang was only Co-Convenor for part of the period covered in this chapter, he was by far the most influential and well-known party member until he defected to the DPP after the 2020 election. In this chapter, I will focus on the first part of this period, from the 2016 defeat through to the first election of the Wang Hau-yu era in 2018. First, I will examine the state of both the GPT and the Trees Party in the aftermath of their 2016 election setbacks. I will then offer a picture of the GPT’s party change through an analysis of its 2018 campaign, which was starkly different from previous local election campaign in 2014 campaign. I will consider how to best explain the GPT’s core patterns of party change in the 2018 campaign. The second puzzle revolves around explaining the GPT and Trees Party’s electoral performance. Why despite such different campaign strategies and issue appeals were the GPT’s election results very similar to the last round? I will give less attention to the Trees Party than in the previous chapters, as it only had one serious set of candidates in 2018. In the aftermath of the 2016 election, both GPT Co-Convenors  – Lee Kencheng and Chang Yu-ching – resigned to take responsibility for the defeat. The party entered into a new, largely dormant period as it largely dropped off the media’s radar, with only a handful of UDN reports that even mentioned the party for the rest of the year. Although Liang Yi-chi took over as Convenor in May 2016, it appeared that there was a power vacuum. In fact, there was only a single UDN report mentioning Liang during his 11 months as Convenor.

238  The Wang Hau-yu era The party was also suffering an erosion of its personnel in the toxic post-election atmosphere. This led a number of Central Executive Committee members to either resign or cease actively engaging in party affairs. A similar pattern was visible among many of the party’s 2016 candidates, in which they either defected to other parties or drifted away from the party. Candidates Wang Pao-hsuan (王寶萱) and Tseng Po-yu both took jobs in Ko Wen-je’s Taipei City Government in 2016, soon after the election.2 This was damaging as both had performed well in their districts and had the potential to be competitive in the next round of local elections. Another case involved the GPT SDP Alliance’s party list candidate Chan Shun-gui (詹順貴), who was recruited to be the incoming DPP government’s Deputy Environment Minister. This was the first time that a GPT figure had been appointed to a national cabinet post. However, this was not something the Lee-led GPT had wanted to see, as during the campaign they had tried to persuade candidates to promise not to join the government after the election.3 I returned to Taiwan in December 2016 through into January 2017. Although my main goal was to speak to people about what went wrong in the 2016 election, I also wanted to get a sense of the current state of the party. Central Executive Committee Member Chiu Hua-mei explained that ‘since then [the election] the party has been operating very badly. The party is defeated and demoralised.’4 Former GPT SDP Alliance candidates and key SDP leaders Chen Shang-chih and Fan Yun had negative appraisals about the post-election GPT and felt that the SDP was performing much better. Chen explained that the difference between us and the GPT is that all of them have stopped. They are all on holiday. . . . We try to have four news releases each week and news conferences once to twice a week, it depends. Our publicity of course is far better than that of the GPT’s but we are not in the same league as the NPP.5 Fan’s impression was similar, ‘yes, it looks very bad. Their office is not operating in Taipei anymore. We look at their Facebook and it’s still the same as half a month ago. While the SDP posts 2–3 times a day.’6 Nevertheless, there were some signs that the party was on the road to recovery. Both Chiu and Fan noted that the GPT had had some success in fundraising since the election, and this was one area where Fan felt the GPT had the edge over the SDP. Fan had noted how it seemed the GPT was undergoing a process of reorganisation. Chiu described this as a decentralisation of the party’s power structure. She explained, ‘we have discussed establishing . . . a more decentralized model, we do not need to have a big organization, a party centre that people will expect to be responsible for everything.’7 So, instead, the focus would be on strong local bases that would be autonomous in their operation and raise their own campaign funds. Rather than the party centre dictating everything, ‘the GPT’s activities will be a combination of all the local activities.’8 In short, Chiu was proposing a variation of the setting down roots model that Lee had tried to bring in.

A new model of local election campaigning  239 Although in January 2017 Chiu had mentioned the reluctance of many to join the Central Executive Committee election, when the new line-up was announced in the spring of 2017, there was a degree of continuity and change. Former CoConvenors Lee Ken-cheng, Chang Yu-ching and Liang Yi-chi remained from the previous committee. Jia Bo-kai, Shawn Wu (吳紹文) and Chang Li-fen, candidates from 2016, joined for the first time. Of the two elected councillors, Wang Hau-yu was also elected. Lastly, there were a number of new committee members who had experience in recent campaigns, such as Wang Yen-han and Iah Chunhong. Even though Chou Chiang-chieh was not on the committee, the fact that he joined the Global Greens delegation suggested that he remained committed to the party and was an important force in the party’s power structure. When the GPT delegation came to London in April 2017, it was clear that the party’s mood was markedly different from four months earlier. It had shifted from pessimism to one that felt more like cautious optimism. Although the delegation explained how they wanted to learn from the mistakes of the 2016 election, they gave the audience a sense that there would also be a high degree of continuity in the party’s campaign appeals. The delegation was looking forward to the 2018 local elections, and despite the tensions seen in the 2016 campaign, most were optimistic about future cooperation with the SDP. As the GPT gradually recovered after the 2016 elections, the focal point of the party shifted towards its two elected members and the Taoyuan/Hsinchu region. Wang and Chou’s performances in the local assemblies thus became a key area of media attention. Before the 2018 local election campaign, however, the GPT would need to cope with new crisis. This was the departure of Chou Chiang-chieh. In June 2017, Chou resigned from Hsinchu County Council in protest over a local tax bill and then in December he defected to join the DPP. Wang has admitted that after Chou’s departure, he also considered switching to the DPP. Although Wang Hau-yu has received extensive criticism for the way he led the GPT in this period, it is important to note his role in getting the party into a position to contest the 2018 elections. Describing the state of the party, he said, all that was left of the GPT was an empty office and one full time staff member. It was only getting NT$20,000 in donations a month. That was nowhere near enough just for office rent, labour insurance premiums or salaries. I realised if I left the GPT it would immediately collapse.9 He recalled how he transferred the GPT’s staff member and designer into his own company, as well as using his own funds to keep the party afloat. He was also able to improve the fundraising so that soon it was getting NT$70,000 to 100,000 a month, something critically important to run a campaign.10 By March 2018, the GPT had announced numerous candidates and was talking optimistically about increasing its local seats.11 On the surface, there were some similar patterns of recovering from defeat for the other Green Party, the Trees Party. Describing the situation, Sheng said, ‘after the 2016 election, the damage was much greater than 2014. We had to close our

240  The Wang Hau-yu era office. There were no funds left to keep it operational.’12 After the election, Sheng took over from Pan Han-chiang as party chair and began to try to rebuild the party. One of his proposals was a plan to shift the party’s focus away from the ultracompetitive special municipalities. In Sheng’s words, ‘we should target remoter places or second level cities.’13 The second initiative was reaching an agreement with the GPT on their joint participation in the Global Greens Congress at Liverpool. As discussed in Chapter 4, the Trees Party’s acceptance as a full member of Global Greens and active participation in the Congress in Liverpool in 2017 was a high point for the party.

The first campaign of the Wang Hau-yu era: the local elections of 2018 Wang has his own unique style of, at times, conflictual political communication, and though this raised party visibility, it also proved to be a challenge for the GPT. Iah Tsun-hong, who was spokesperson for a year and a half, recalls, I was always putting out Wang Hau-yu’s fires. It took a while to work out how to work together. He has his way of building up his and the GPT’s visibility. He likes to say something to get attention and get people to argue with him. So that gains much visibility.14 Often Wang would alienate traditional GPT social movement groups that had long been close allies of the party. For instance, a local environmental group fighting to protect an algal reef against a proposed new liquid gas port facility in Taoyuan was highly critical of Wang’s stance. This group even publicly challenged the GPT at a Global Greens Coordination meeting in October 2018 over its handling of the port project. He also angered labour movement activists over his criticism of the low turnout for a major labour protest in December 2017.15 A further related criticism was that he was too supportive of the DPP Taoyuan City mayor, Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦). Peng Yen-wen explained the dissatisfaction, saying, ‘he made fun of the fact that labour was only able to mobilise a small number of people. He did not show concern over why many labourers were not able to come out to protest.’16 Wang did raise new issues that were related to local politics, such as smooth roads, and about the education system. Iah offered a more supportive interpretation of Wang’s political communication, observing that his statements are not going against the six core values of the Greens. For instance, his comments on normalizing education. Not starting school so early, not wearing uniform. Making sure students have enough to eat and get enough sleep. These are important issues. But he will accuse uniform makers of collusion, so that students have to buy these things. Calling for improved road surfaces, these are all effective issues. Some criticise him for putting on a show. But at least so far, these are not contradicting our values.17

A new model of local election campaigning  241 A further element of Wang’s communication was attacking the KMT and NPP. For instance, his Facebook page shared a video of a KMT councillor abusing a local civil servant, and while this incident had occurred in April 2018, it was released in the final few weeks of the 2018 campaign. Two of the Taoyuan GPT YouTube ads for the 2018 election focused on attacking the KMT candidates’ illegal billboards. One such 25-second ad, placed for Taoyuan City District 8 candidate Ou Yang-ting (歐陽霆), highlighted a KMT candidate’s billboard that had been placed over traffic CCTV cameras.18 Another major target of Wang’s attacks was the NPP. For instance, in April 2018 he accused the NPP of trying to cover up a case where one of its employees had been caught in possession of LSD. The overall style of the GPT’s 2018 campaign was very different from four years earlier. In the realm of internet campaigning, there was much greater reliance on the use of social media in the Wang era, while the GPT’s website was used far less than under Lee’s convenorship. Instead of the party centre-led campaign in 2014, the focus was on the two candidate teams in Taoyuan and Hsinchu. Explaining the changed 2018 approach, Iah said, This time Wang Hau-yu said that not only should we promote our ideals, but we should campaign to win. In the past for the GPT the focus was on promoting our ideals in the campaign. But in Taiwan the voters mainly care about the candidate. Only after they know you and your personality will they want to know about your ideals. Without that, no matter how good your policies are, it won’t work. In the past the GPT would just put its policies on the internet and expect the voters to look at them and support it. That is just too naive. This time we have changed the priority of doing things. In the past we spent a lot of time doing policy research, designing advertisements, managing social media. This time we are spending more time on the streets. Each day for eight hours, we spend about six hours on the streets and two in the office.19 I will first briefly discuss the propaganda used in Taoyuan before discussing the Hsinchu campaign in more detail. In addition to one 37-second ad that essentially just introduced the names of all nine candidates on Taoyuan and Hsinchu, there were two main video ads for the Taoyuan campaigns.20 In the first, we see Wang at one of his regular campaign locations, speaking with a small loudspeaker on a street intersection. He first complains about the way candidates illegally make intersections a mess with their flags and billboards. Instead, he explains how he wants to challenge this kind of electoral culture. He guarantees that his team will not close off the street for election marches, use loudspeaker vans or use flags or billboards. He ends with the slogan ‘this time, let’s change the election culture’ (這次，改變選舉文化).21 The second ad was more professionally made and was titled ‘GPT: Let’s Allow Taoyuan to Continue Improving’(綠黨: 讓桃園，繼續 更好).22 In this ad, Wang asks whether he’s been able to make a difference on his core issues of making the roads smoother, temporary contract workers, wages, work exploitation, school hours, examination pressure, uniforms and school

242  The Wang Hau-yu era meals. He then explains that to make things better, the GPT needs a team in the council, so it needs Lo Yue-feng and Ou Yang-ting to make Taoyuan better. Like the Taipei campaign in 2010, in 2018 the GPT Hsinchu campaign was a rare example of one that cut across administrative districts, as the team included candidates in both Hsinchu City and County. The title of the Hsinchu ad was ‘Taking Off the Campaign Vest, We Are All the Same’ (脫下競選背心，其實我 們都一樣).23 We see images of the six Hsinchu candidates out campaigning on their bikes and in the market, but also in their regular life, buying lottery tickets, in traffic jams and walking the dog in the park. It ends with the slogan ‘vote for someone like you that cares about Hsinchu’ (選出跟你一樣在乎新竹的人). During and at the end of the ad, viewers are reminded which district each candidate is standing in. On interviewing the campaign team, it was apparent that they were trying to follow Wang’s call for a different style of campaigning. For instance, on leaving the Hsinchu train station, I saw a GPT electronic billboard ad, a method I had first seen in Taoyuan in 2014. Although some joined later, many of the most competitive candidates in both Hsinchu and Taoyuan began campaigning early in 2018 or even earlier. This was in sharp contrast to the common GPT pattern of last-minute nomination. It was clear that the Hsinchu group were trying to make use of a variety of traditional campaign methods that had rarely featured in GPT campaigns before. The way Iah described his campaigning reveals how he was navigating his GPT identity with the needs of winning over voters: Traditional political figures, or local factions. If you want to be in politics you cannot be completely clean. To solve issues, you need to work with local people. The farmer, fisherman, irrigation associations, they all have organizational networks. My district has a fishing harbour and so I need to contact the people at the fish market. I need to try to get the votes of people in the fishing industry. I also want to pass on the idea of sustainable fishing, to avoid overfishing. If you try to preach before people know you, they are not likely to accept you. Change will take time. You first have to be brought into their lives and then we can talk more. We need to build up trust and only then can we start to talk about change. It’s not a matter of telling them about the global trend. . . . This is what I have discovered in the north district, as there is a fishing port, and farmer and fishermen associations. Another important network is the irrigation association. They have been important organizations for local factions. Many of their members had been DPP supporters. Some have come over to support us as a result of DPP factional splits.24 In other words, Iah was devoting much of his campaign focus to what Rigger calls the private face of the campaign (1999, 41). The Hsinchu team had also carried out rigorous research and used this as the basis of their local policy proposals. For instance, the GPT included detailed proposals for a light rail system as part of the solution for the city’s transport woes, one of the most salient issues in Hsinchu City. However, there were areas

A new model of local election campaigning  243 of continuity, such as on LGBT issues, as a number of related issues were being voted on in national referendums on the same day as the local elections.25 For instance, though Iah was using many traditional campaigning methods, he still did not lose sight of the GPT’s core issue of LGBT rights. He explained that we have been hoping to see these referendums on public policies to help our votes in local elections. So, I  have been involved in the referendum campaign. We hope that referendums on issues like marriage equality will help make young people more interested in local elections.26 A final element in the Hsinchu campaign that attracted attention and controversy was the way they tried generating media attention through meeting celebrities. In 2014, the celebrity endorsements tended to be figures from social movements or alternative popular culture. In contrast, key GPT celebrity meetings in 2018 were with Chair of the MKT, Hsu Hsin-ying (徐欣瑩), the Taoyuan City mayor, Cheng Wen-tsan, and the parents of independent Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je. Given that the MKT had a reputation as a conservative party opposed to same-sex marriage, this meeting was criticised by many traditional GPT supporters. This also highlights the contrasting style of the Wang and Lee eras. GPT party founder Kao Cheng-yan told me that he had been approached to arrange a meeting (not an endorsement) with the prospective Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je and the GPT back in early 2014 but without any explanation had been turned down by the Lee Ken-cheng-led GPT.27 By 2018, the Wang-led GPT would undoubtedly have welcomed such a publicity opportunity. The exception to the GPT’s campaign style in Hsinchu was Co-Convenor Wang Yen-han’s candidacy in Hsiangshan District. Peng Yen-wen had been troubled by the lack of female GPT candidates, and so she had encouraged Wang to stand and to run a more traditional GPT campaign. Perhaps, as it was clear that there was little chance of Wang Yen-han getting elected, she had more scope to give greater emphasis to GPT values. As Wang explained, my campaign is a little different. [Peng] Yen-wen suggested I should try to stand, and run an issue based campaign. So, I am still working out my strategy. But my strategy is a little different. I will go to the market, stand by the roadside, But I will stress issues, such as marriage equality as well as antinuclear appeals. Part of the thinking is I can get those loyal GPT voters. The key issues for those loyal GPT voters are marriage equality and opposing nuclear power.28

Explaining the GPT party change in 2018 The last section has shown that the GPT’s 2018 campaign was markedly different to both 2014 and 2016. This may seem a little surprising considering the continuity in the makeup of the GPT’s Central Executive Committee elected in 2017. The answer to this puzzling development lies in the party’s changing balance

244  The Wang Hau-yu era of power, which shifted towards Wang Hau-yu and to a group of younger party activists. Between the party member congress in March 2017 and the summer of 2018, four of the Central Executive Committee members and two out of the three Central Review Committee members resigned and were replaced by those on the waiting list. Additionally, Chou defected to the DPP. Many of those that left the Central Committees were important links to the Lee Ken-cheng era and had the potential to stand up to Wang. These included Lee himself, the union leader and party list candidate in 2016, Chang Li-fen, and former Convenor and 2014 candidate Liang Yi-chi. I described in Chapter 3 how there had been accusations that Lee Ken-cheng had purged opponents in the party during his time as Co-Convenor. So it was ironic that his departure from the party would be described in similar terms. In September 2018, Lin Cheng-hsiu remarked that ‘anyway, now Lee Ken-cheng’s been thrown out.’29 When I asked Chang Li-fen why she had left the Central Review Committee in early 2018, she explained that it was not solely because I could not accept his [Wang] criticism of the labour movement, I also could not see any ideals or ideas. . . . The Central Review Committee was not able to play a supervisory role.30 Peng Yen-wen was concerned about the consequences of the new power structure in the months leading up to the 2018 election. Describing the state of affairs then, she said, ‘the people who are left don’t really understand the GPT’s values or do not stress these values. They care more about political calculations. That can damage our reputation.’31 Chang Chih-wei was an example of one of those newcomers who had joined the Central Executive Committee in August 2017 (replacing another member that had resigned), and by the time he stood for election in 2018, he was the GPT’s Secretary General. Peng believed that many of the strategies adopted in the Hsinchu campaign were down to Chang’s influence. Peng had a very negative impression of the style of campaigning that the Hsinchu team was adopting, saying that using visiting celebrities to get media attention is the wrong strategy. So, she [Wang Yen-han] did not join the meeting with Cheng Wen-tsan [Taoyuan mayor]. It’s boring, you are standing for election in Hsinchu, so why do you go to see the Taoyuan mayor? It did not bring to light any issues or the GPT’s positions.32

Understanding the GPT’s electoral performance in 2018 Although on paper the GPT improved slightly in 2018 compared with 2014 by going from two to three local council seats, in reality it was another missed opportunity. The GPT and its candidates had gained valuable experience in 2014 and 2016. Although it could not be expected to match the NPP’s 16 seats,

A new model of local election campaigning  245 if we consider that the GPT received 2.5 percent of the vote in 2016 compared to the NPP’s 6.1, then maybe ten seats would have been a reasonable goal for the GPT. Once again, the first place to understand the GPT’s performance is the party system at the time. It could be argued the party system was more competitive for small parties by 2018. Not only was the NPP stronger than in 2016, and the Trees Party nominated widely, the SDP was contesting seats and the Taiwan Radical Wings was also now an official and well organised party. Nevertheless, the party system should not be taken as the primary cause of the GPT’s limited growth in 2018. The GPT actually had more success at small party cooperation in 2018 compared to 2016. It worked together with the Trees Party in the Hsinchu County campaign. The establishment of the Welfare State Alliance (社會福利國家連線) was announced in June and included the GPT, Taiwan Radical Wings and SDP.33 Although this did not lead to any coordinated campaigning, it did help to avoid these small parties competing against each other. In fact, there was only one district where one of these allied parties stood against a GPT candidate.34 The state of the DPP also provided the GPT with opportunities that year. The DPP was quite unpopular for a range of reasons and would go on to suffer severe setbacks in these local elections. Despite its pledges to legalise same-sex marriage in 2016, the DPP had hesitated in the face of a conservative counter-movement. The DPP did not actively campaign in the national referendums related to LGBT issues held on the same day as the local elections in 2018. There was a similar picture for nuclear power, as pro-nuclear advocates also mobilised strongly in support of a referendum calling on the government to scrap its target of Taiwan becoming nuclear-free by 2025. This passive DPP stance left many of its former supporters disillusioned and so provided the GPT and other civil society-linked parties a large group of potential voters. The biggest party system challenge that the GPT faced in 2018 came from the NPP. The NPP appeared to have targeted the GPT in 2018, as it nominated in seven out of the ten districts with GPT candidates.35 Although the GPT managed to win in two of these seven districts, the NPP’s competition probably severely undermined the GPT’s chances in the cases of Lo Yue-feng in Taoyuan District 1 and Iah Tsun-hong in Hsinchu City District 4. There had been much optimism on Iah’s prospects in September and polls suggested he could be elected. When I asked him afterwards, he noted how it was only later that his opponents began to spend heavily on advertising and more actively mobilised their networks. He believed he became the victim of the dump and save effect (棄保效應). He explained, ‘if there is only space for one third force seat [in a district], people will want to support the one that has a greater chance of getting elected and not the one that they had originally liked the most.’36 In this case, the NPP candidate in his district did win, and some more progressive voters may have also opted for the DPP candidate, Lee Yen-hui (李姸慧), who has a record of stressing environmental and gender equality issues.

246  The Wang Hau-yu era

The GPT campaign factors in 2018 Although the party system did have an impact on the GPT’s electoral performance in 2018, especially the NPP, the evidence of my research suggests the party’s own campaign was even more important. The first area where the party let itself down was its very limited geographical nomination of candidates in 2018. Through a number of cases, we can see how the party failed to build on the momentum it had accumulated during the Lee era. Firstly, the GPT failed to hold on to candidates that had run strong campaigns in 2016 and had the potential to win in local elections. Among the five district candidates nominated by the GPT in 2016, only Jia Bo-kai stood in the 2018 local elections. Moreover, it appeared Jia only received limited GPT support in his campaign in 2018. Its 2016 candidate that won the most votes was Tseng Po-yu, and though she did initially work for Ko Wen-je’s Taipei City government, she only announced she was switching to the NPP to stand in May  2018. In other words, if the party had reached out to her, it is possible she could have been one of the GPT’s highest vote winners in 2018. The case of Yang Jhih-da in Tainan was perhaps even more costly. Yang had run a surprisingly strong campaign in 2016 in an unwinnable single member district. If he had been able repeat his 9,000 votes from 2016 in the 2018 local council election, he could have been elected. Yang explained, ‘so for the first few months after the election I was still thinking I’d start preparing for the next election and continued recruiting people into the GPT. I even did some publicity for the GPT.’37 However, he was being challenged within the local GPT Tainan branch due to his close connection with outgoing Co-Convenor Lee Ken-cheng. He also recalled how after the election the GPT did not show any care or interact with me. After the election, that was it. No one from the party headquarters called me to ask what is your plan now? How can we support you? The funny thing was after the election, the first call from the party headquarters was to say I needed to pay my party membership fees, otherwise your membership will expire.38 After the election, Yang also helped to establish a group called Tainan Sprout, which promoted local government supervision, and this could have provided an important platform for a GPT local election campaign in 2018. However, Yang drifted away from the party, and its Tainan branch also gradually became less active. Instead, by late 2017 the NPP had set up its local Tainan branch and the Taiwan Radical Wings was also beginning to prepare candidates. Yang decided to join the NPP and came close to standing for the party in 2018. By the time the GPT approached him, it was too late. As Yang explained, close to the election, the GPT did contact me. But by then I felt there was nothing to discuss. You’d not been in touch for so long and suddenly got in touch at election time. I made it clear I would not return to the GPT.39

A new model of local election campaigning  247 The picture in Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s second largest city, was similar. The party had continued to expand there in the aftermath of Liang Yi-chi’s impressive local election performance in 2014. Although the GPT did not have any candidates in Kaohsiung in 2016, with Lee and many of his associates based there, it felt like this was the party headquarters rather than Taipei. However, in the aftermath of 2016, the Kaohsiung branch also gradually began to wither. As Yang explained, ‘many from the Liang Yi-chi campaign stayed and campaigned for the GPT SDP Alliance in 2016. But after the 2016 election and by 2018 those in the Kaohsiung GPT SDP Alliance had scattered.’40 Another of Liang’s main campaigners, Iah Tsun-hong, had considered standing in Kaohsiung in 2018, but once it was clear he would not have enough local backing, he shifted to Hsinchu. He described the state of affairs in Kaohsiung, saying, Lee Ken-cheng was too badly hurt by the last election, so has dropped out. Liang Yi-chi wants to get married and have children. He does not want to do politics anymore. Danubak Matalaq (瑪達拉·達努巴克) is a teacher and has a stable life and does not want troublesome things [elections].41 So, a reason for leaving is that the Kaohsiung party branch is not strong enough. If they cannot openly support me, I decided to work with Hau-yu’s strategy here.42 Once again, it was the NPP that stepped in and took advantage of the GPT’s failure to build on its existing local organisation. Sanmin District was one of the two seats it won in Kaohsiung in 2018. Although most of the NPP’s city councillor in Sanmin, Lin Yu-kai’s (林于凱), team were new, some did switch over from the GPT. As had been the case in 2014 and 2016, the GPT did not have candidates in Taipei City in 2018. Instead, the movement party competition was between the NPP and SDP, while the GPT was absent and invisible. As we will see in the next chapter, this would have a negative knock-on effect in 2020. The party could have handled this critical region in a better way. Naturally, part of the problem lay in the failure to nominate in Taipei City in the Lee era. A news report in March 2018 stated that the GPT planned to nominate three Taipei City Council candidates.43 However, to win in Taipei City, the GPT would have needed very strong candidates. Robin Winkler, who had almost stood for legislator in 2016, was one such potential candidate, as was Arthur Yo, from the Songshan Tree Protection Volunteer Union. Yo’s environmentalist record made him a perfect fit for the GPT; however, Yo instead stood for the SDP. Even if the GPT were not nominating candidates in Taipei City, it still could have gained visibility if the GPT SDP Alliance name had been adopted again or there was a clear joint campaigning effort in Taipei. However, it was clear that tensions between the two parties prevented any substantive cooperation. For instance, a March  2018 Liberty Times report twice cited Fan Yun as being perplexed by comments by Wang Hau-yu. She was clearly displeased with his stated intention to nominate in the same district as the SDP’s strongest candidate, Miao Po-ya.44 Earlier, I cited examples of the SDP’s

248  The Wang Hau-yu era poor impression of the Lee-era GPT, but it would appear they found the Wang-era GPT even harder to work with. One anonymous GPT figure described the way Wang negotiated with the SDP by saying, ‘or I should say he changes his mind. I mean in the dialogue between the two parties. So originally someone wanted to use the GPT SDP Alliance in this election, but later they changed their minds.’45 Just as when I raised this neglect of Taipei City with Lee in 2014, the 2018 leadership team did not seem to feel this was a major problem. Iah explained they had decided to leave it to the SDP, as no GPT members had come forward with the money to run a serious campaign in Taipei City.46 In addition to these strategic mistakes, the GPT was losing much of the support base it had built up since its post-2006 revival. Peng told me how hard she had found fundraising for the party campaign in 2018. Some friends had described the GPT to her as ‘chaotic and rotten’; another had described its leadership as ‘immature’ and that ‘the way the GPT is going is too terrible.’47 Peng explained how ‘some said to me recently the GPT seems very strange.’48 A number of things appear to have particularly led long-standing supporters to desert the party. Peng explained, ‘what are they not satisfied with? It’s mainly because many of his [Wang] public comments are politically incorrect.’49 Naturally, I raised such concerns with the 2018 leadership, and it was interesting to see how they justified the changed approach and saw the potential even to expand the party’s base. Co-Convenor Wang Yen-han explained, something that the older generation of the GPT are not happy about Hau-yu is his comments on trade unions. Another is his interaction with the Taoyuan mayor, Cheng Wen-tsan. They say why are you so close to him? Why do you criticise the trade unions? For us younger GPT we think as a party representative, it’s hard for you not to have interaction with the incumbent mayor. The biggest difference between social movements and parties is that social movements use opposition to create issues. But parties often need to negotiate and cooperate.50 Similarly, the GPT’s Hsinchu City candidate Liu Chung-hsien explained that we have chosen a less idealistic method, but one with a greater chance of success. We might lose some original supporters, but we hope we can expand into a new bigger support base for the GPT. Once we get elected, we can start to do some of the things that the GPT should do. I believe that some of those original GPT supporters that were disappointed will come back. If we then add them to the new support base we have built up then the overall base will become even larger. This approach will be beneficial for the overall development of the GPT.51 Although I have touched upon a number of district campaigns from 2018 so far, I will now briefly discuss a few notable cases.

A new model of local election campaigning  249

Losing narrowly again in Taoyuan District 1 When I visited Taiwan in September 2018, GPT sources told me they were optimistic about winning all three seats in Taoyuan. Wang Hau-yu and Lo Yue-feng were the only GPT candidates from 2014 that were standing again. Wang Hauyu’s re-election came as no surprise, but Lo Yue-feng’s narrow defeat in Taoyuan City District 1 deserves attention. After coming quite close to being elected in 2014, he had subsequently worked for Wang in his office, gaining important local governance experience. When I raised the puzzle with Wang, while he agreed the challenge from the NPP was a factor, he cited as even more important Lo’s criticism of Taoyuan Mayor Cheng in the final days of the campaign. Explaining what happened, Wang said, it’s because Mayor Cheng is very popular in Taoyuan. It’s because at the end of the election Lo Yue-feng decided to criticise Cheng Wen-tsan on his Facebook. Basically this hurt his own election. That is what we think. Because most of the polls show he can pass on the election. And the GPT at the time in Taoyuan was very close to Cheng.52 Reviews of Lo’s campaign suggest he was campaigning hard but using a more traditional GPT style of electioneering, quite different from Wang and most of the team in Hsinchu in 2018. For instance, he talked about running an ‘Environmental Protection campaign,’ noting how unlike other candidates he would not give out candidate tissue packs.53 Lo told the reporter that ‘only by relying on ideals to attract voters can they become your own private iron voters.’54 On a variety of issues, he seemed to be taking quite different stances from Wang Hauyu. For instance, he had come out strongly in support of the labour rights of Taoyuan bus drivers. A further example concerned the algal reef protection movement in Taoyuan, which had been angered by Wang’s critical comments. A media report noted that Lo had joined the environmental groups’ protest against the port scheme despite the fact that GPT Convenor Wang Hau-yu tended to support Mayor Cheng.55 Therefore, it seems likely that in the latter part of the campaign, Wang may well have reduced his support for Lo. While Wang believed that Lo’s criticism of Cheng had cost him electorally, Lo took the opposite view, arguing that allying with the DPP actually damaged the GPT. Lo explained, Hau-yu’s change did affect my election support, because I believe a councillor should always take the stance of supervision. So whether it’s criticising Cheng Wen-tsan or the DPP, it will affect those long-term supporters.56

Winning in Hsinchu City District 1 A number of factors made Hsinchu and in particular Hsinchu City District 1 (Table 4.18) favourable for the GPT. The city has a young and highly educated

250  The Wang Hau-yu era population, many of whom are outsiders that have moved into Hsinchu to work in the Hsinchu Science Park or its major universities, such as Tsing Hua and Chiao Tung. The GPT enjoyed its second highest party list vote there in 2012 and third highest in 2016. The potential of Hsinchu City District 1 was seen when the GPT’s Yang Chi-hsiang (楊志翔) stood there in 2014; despite the fact that he had been expelled by the party six weeks before the election, he still came within 61 votes of being elected. Moreover, in 2018 the district magnitude had been increased from 11 to 12. Liu Chung-hsien had advantages over the other GPT candidates in Hsinchu City. Although the others had campaign support experience for the GPT, Liu had campaigned for the NPP in 2016 in Hsinchu City. Moreover, among the five GPT candidates, he was the only Hsinchu local and had also graduated from the city’s Tsing Hua University. This meant he had an extensive network of connections within the city. Of course, he was also standing in the city’s most favourable district for the party. Described his campaign prospects, Liu said, one advantage is I am a local Hsinchu person. So, my poll ratings are a little higher than the GPT’s. I’ve been building up support in the district but also this is where the GPT support is strongest. This district has the Science Park. So, there are many people who have moved in to Hsinchu to work, many young people. They work in the Science Park and want to live closer to their work, so they buy houses in the East District. So, this is where there are the youngest people. They are less likely to say I must vote KMT or DPP. They are looking for younger candidates with a good image57 In addition, Liu benefitted from the fact that this was a well-funded and planned campaign. Wang Yen-han explained how this time Wang Hau-yu is managing the advertising. He has bought YouTube ads for the whole Hsinchu team. Maybe just for a few seconds. He’s done this for Taoyuan and Hsinchu. I’ve met voters who asked if I am the same person as the ad.58 In addition, Wang had bought targeted Facebook ads and electronic billboard time. It was clear that both Liu and Iah were campaigning especially hard. Iah’s comment gives a sense of what it was like being a serious candidate: to tell you the truth two weeks ago I thought about quitting the election. I felt I could not take anymore. Every day I don’t eat enough and sleep enough. It’s really hard labour. Candidates always have to be positive and optimistic. Otherwise people won’t vote for you. So, for a while I  dared not look at my Line and Facebook.59 If I look at Facebook it’ll all be about what other candidates are doing. You feel guilty about just taking a nap at home. People can afford to buy advertising, student helpers and you have nothing. I  ask

A new model of local election campaigning  251 myself whether my campaign means anything. Traditional GPT supports are not looking for a candidate but a saint. So, a few weeks ago I was in tears talking about dropping out.60 Although Iah was campaigning as hard as Liu, Liu’s local networks and a more favourable district meant their electoral outcomes were starkly different.

Retaining a seat in Hsinchu County Although Yu Hsiao-ching is from Hsinchu County and had election experience for the Trees Party in 2014, her seemingly comfortable election in 2018 (Table 4.17) to the Hsinchu County Council also deserves some attention. Of course, she was standing in Hsinchu County District 8, where Chou Chiang-chieh had been elected 2014. However, Chou had resigned his position as county councillor in mid-2017 and subsequently defected to the DPP. At the time of the election, he was serving as Director of the DPP’s Hakka Affairs Department. Since the district also had an official DPP candidate, GPT sources told me Chou could only offer Yu limited support. In this case, the pattern of party competition in the county played a critical role in Yu’s success. Firstly, though the GPT’s group picture with the MKT’s Hsu Hsin-ying had created a backlash among traditional GPT supporters, there were signs that it may have benefitted Yu’s campaign. At the time, Hsu was standing for county magistrate and so needed to build up a broad support alliance beyond her own small MKT. Analysists often stress the importance of clans in voting behaviour in Hsinchu County, and Hsu and Yu are from the same Hakka clan. Wang Yen-han explained that ‘Hsu Hsin-ying said to us that she can introduce some of her people to [Yu] Hsiao-ching.’61 While Iah continued, ‘the MKT does not have any candidates in Zhudong. So, they can support Hsiao-ching. If Hsiaoching wins it’ll be good for her [Hsu] and we can cooperate.’62 This shows how the Wang-era GPT was willing to work together with a party ideologically distant, so long as it helped their electoral success. Secondly, as had been the case in 2014, the pattern of party competition within the district itself had a major effect on the result. While many of the GPT candidates in 2018 were competing for votes against both the DPP and NPP, only Yu had a single non-incumbent DPP candidate in her district. One former GPT figure argued that ‘the most important factor [for Yu’s success] was that the DPP was severely divided in Hsinchu County District 8.’63 When Chou stood in 2014, he had only faced a single traditional-style DPP candidate, Lin Chao-chi (林昭錡), whom Chou only narrowly defeated.64 In contrast, in 2018 the DPP vote was split between the official candidate and Lin, who was standing as a rebel DPP candidate. Despite the fact that Lin was an incumbent county councillor, the DPP had chosen not to re-nominate him, as he had garnered a notorious reputation since entering the county council. In June 2017, Lin made the TV news after being arrested for drink driving and insulting police officers. The DPP responded by suspending his party membership for one year. Lin was furious about the DPP’s decision and

252  The Wang Hau-yu era claimed that he was the victim of a factional power struggle.65 Although he was later given a six-month prison sentence (commutable by a fine), he was able to retain his status as a county councillor. Generally, mainstream parties only attack the GPT candidates when they see them as a threat. This was definitely the case in this district, as Yu revealed in late October that she had been the victim of a ‘black letter’ attack. The cheaply printed leaflet she shared on her Facebook accused her of being a ‘political temptress.’66 The leaflet accused her of a long list of immoral behaviour, including adultery, liking masturbation, sleeping naked, online shopping and, perhaps worst of all, taking too long to graduate from her postgraduate degree at a private university. Unlike similar rumour spreading attacks against Wang Chung-ming in 2014, this did not seem to have any detrimental impact, and in fact the social media response seems to have been very supportive. In short, Yu benefitted from the fact that she did not need to compete against other movement party candidates, the DPP was divided, the main DPP-style candidate had such a negative image and tacit support from the MKT.

Trees Party in Penghu When the votes were being counted on November 24, 2018, I was particularly looking out for the GPT’s top candidates in Hsinchu and Taoyuan, but also for the Trees Party’s Sheng I-che, who was standing in Penghu for county councillor. I could not believe my eyes when I saw how low Sheng’s votes were. Penghu is one of my favourite fieldwork locations in Taiwan. So I was excited to return in September 2018 to see how Sheng was running his campaign. I based myself at a beach location that Sheng had described in his SOAS lecture, where his team had fought to protect an important sea turtle nesting site from development. Having been in Taipei earlier, I had seen just how marginal the Trees Party candidates were there. In contrast, I was very impressed with what I saw in Sheng’s campaign in Penghu. He had a strong team of seven township council candidates. Sheng explained this is the first time to have this kind of joint campaign in Penghu, a team of seven of us. So, the seven of them are out in the streets campaigning and I can focus more on issues. The voters see their leaflets and on the other side it’s me. So, they understand we are campaigning together. It’s mutually helpful.67 It was clear he was dedicating resources to both traditional and modern campaign methods. For instance, this was the first time I had seen an alternative candidate with multiple large billboards, but they also had strong social media campaigning and coverage in traditional media. His discussion of campaign strategy was such a contrast to the laidback Fu Ching-fan in 2014. Additionally, I have never met a candidate that could speak on such a range of local governance issues in such depth and detail as Sheng. He spoke like someone ready to stand not for county council but rather county magistrate. Why, then, did Sheng only get 379 votes?

A new model of local election campaigning  253 Part of the answer lies in the state of competition in Penghu County District 1. There were 22 candidates vying for 11 places in District 1. The advantage was that the lowest winning candidate could get elected with just over 4 percent compared to 5.25 percent in 2014. However, in 2018 he admitted the field was more competitive for alternative candidates compared to four years earlier.68 Fu was standing again but as an independent, there was an NPP candidate and Sheng noted another independent candidate was competing with arts-related appeals. Additionally, there were three DPP candidates compared to only two in 2014. Overall, then, the market for non-KMT or alternative party voters was too crowded. If we combine the votes of Fu, Sheng and the NPP candidate, they would reach 1,662, more than enough to get elected. I also wanted to see how those on the DPP side of politics viewed the alternative candidates. One former DPP politician told me he had backed Fu in 2014 but did not see him as competitive in 2018. Although he admired Sheng’s charisma and idealism, he believed he had damaged himself by calling for the end of the death penalty and supporting same-sex marriage. He felt that Penghu’s voters are still too conservative for this kind of progressive appeal. Overall, although it does appear that on this occasion party system factors were decisive in Sheng’s defeat, I remain puzzled as to why he was not the best performing out of the pack of alternative candidates.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have examined how the GPT recovered from its 2016 defeat as well as the subsequent severe loss of human resources. The analysis of the 2018 local elections revealed how the Wang-led GPT was trying to rebrand itself and to prioritise electoral success. I have devoted much of the chapter to explaining the party’s mixed electoral fortunes in 2018. Although the GPT did slightly improve its number of local council seats, it was still not in the same league as the NPP. It would appear that there was a high price to pay for the new vote maximising strategy. For many traditional GPT supporters, the party appeared to be engaging in a Faustian bargain. For them, cooperating with Ko Wen-je, the MKT and even the DPP’s Cheng Wen-tsan was equivalent to striking a deal with the devil. Almost as soon as the local elections were over, the mainstream parties began their candidate selection process for the January 2020 national elections. How would the new GPT approach this next round of elections? Would its new model of operation enable it to be more competitive than Lee’s GPT? This will be the topic of the next chapter.

Notes 1 Li Yan-mou (李彥謀), ‘The GPT overtakes the TSU to become the fifth largest party, four of its council candidates can get elected in Hsinchu and Taoyuan,’ CM Media, 26 March 2018, https://www.cmmedia.com.tw/home/articles/9136?fbclid=IwAR1H7Ufk sxQtne6YpVQlu9O0x-EolFxIvHOREr0pP88BCikOiNlYhWmhN2Q.

254  The Wang Hau-yu era 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

UDN Evening News, 14 March 2016, B2. Fan Yun, 5 January 2017. Chiu Hua-mei, 2 January 2017. Chen Shang-chih, 3 January 2017. Fan Yun, 5 January 2017. Chiu Hua-mei, 2 January 2017. Ibid. Wang Hau-yu, Facebook post, 22 June 2020. Ibid. Li Yan-mou (李彥謀), ‘The GPT Overtakes the TSU to Become the Fifth Largest Party, Four of Its Council Candidates Can Get Elected in Hsinchu and Taoyuan,’ CM Media, 26 March 2018. Sheng I-che, 12 September 2018. Ibid. Ian Tsun-hong, 17 September 2018. China Times, 24 December  2017, www.chinatimes.com/realtimenews/2017122400 1017-260407?chdtv. Peng Yen-wen, 15 September 2018. Ian Tsun-hong, 17 September 2018. GPT, Facebook post, 1 October 2018, www.facebook.com/TaiwanGreenParty/videos/ 171541580430932/. Ian Tsun-hong, 17 September 2018. GPT, Facebook post, 23 November 2018, www.facebook.com/TaiwanGreenParty/videos/ 275759919632163/. GPT, Facebook post, 6 November 2018, www.facebook.com/TaiwanGreenParty/videos/ 2240558166225465/. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1dkz_BAz9s. GPT, Facebook post, 23 October  2018, www.facebook.com/TaiwanGreenParty/ videos/2167217153492189/. Ian Tsun-hong, 17 September 2018. Referendums were held on same-sex marriage and gender education in 2018. Ian Tsun-hong, 17 September 2018. Kao Cheng-yan, 26 December 2014. Wang Yen-han, 17 September 2018. Lin Cheng-hsiu, 14 September 2018. Chang Lifen, Facebook message, 5 April 2020. Peng Yen-wen, 15 September 2018. Ibid. Chiao Chia-hui (焦家卉), ‘The SDP, Taiwan Radical Wings and GPT Join to Form the Welfare State Alliance,’ Storm Media, 18 June 2018, www.storm.mg/article/450421. The one exception was New Taipei City District 2, where the Taiwan Radical Wings nominated against the GPT’s Jia Bo-kai. The patterns of NPP nominations in 2018 also suggest it was trying to undermine other rival alternative parties, particularly the SDP in Taipei City and the Taiwan Radical Wings in Kaohsiung City. Iah Tsun-hong, Facebook message, 22 November 2019. Yang Jhih-da, 5 November 2019. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Danubak Matalaq was a Central Executive Committee member for the 2017–19 term. Iah Tsun-hong, 17 September 2018. Liberty Times, 14 March 2018.

A new model of local election campaigning 255 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68

Ibid. Anonymous GPT source. Iah Tsun-hong, 17 September 2018. Peng Yen-wen, 15 September 2018. Ibid. Ibid. Wang Yen-han, 17 September 2018. Liu Chung-hsien, 17 September 2018. Wang Hau-yu, Facebook message, 17 June 2020. https://buzzorange.com/2018/09/18/luo-yue-feng-eco-friendly-election/. This point particularly caught my eye as the Hsinchu candidates were giving out tissue packs. Tsai Song-bo (蔡松伯), ‘Not Spending Much Money, Not Giving Out Campaign Tissue Packs, How Will the GPT’s Lo Yue-feng Gain Floating Voters?’ Buzz Orange, 18 September 2018, https://buzzorange.com/2018/09/18/luo-yue-feng-eco-friendly-election/. Huang Wen-chieh (黃文傑), ‘Taoyuan Civic Groups Fire the First Shot at Cheng Wentsan,’ China Review News, www.crntt.tw/doc/1052/1/7/8/105217857.html?coluid=93 &kindid=8110&docid=105217857&mdate=1016101035. Lo Yue-feng, Facebook message, 18 June 2020. Liu Chung-hsien, 17 September 2018. Wang Yen-han, 17 September 2018. Line is a very popular social media platform in East Asia. Iah Tsun-hong, 17 September 2018. Wang Yen-han, 17 September 2018. Iah Tsun-hong, 17 September 2018. Anonymous former GPT figure, 8 June 2020. At the time, Lin was in his mid-fifties and had been a DPP party member for three decades. UDN Evening News, 29 July 2017, B2 Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Miaoli News. GPT, Facebook post, 25 October 2018, www.facebook.com/Hakkameme.LoveTaiwan/ photos/a.2013956665489583/2211071495778098/?type=3&theater. Sheng I-che, 12 September 2018. Ibid.

Reference Rigger, Shelley. 1999. Politics in Taiwan: Voting for Democracy. London: Routledge.

14 The Teng Hui-wen or Wang Hau-yu GPT campaigns in 2020

Aftermath of 2018 The GPT joined its most recent national elections in January 2020. In this final empirical chapter, I will again look at the contents of the GPT’s electoral strategy and try to explain its performance. Despite party founder Kao Cheng-yan returning to stand and attempts to link the 2020 appeals to the party’s 1996 founding election, the 2020 campaign was quite distinct from any previous GPT cases. Instead, the focus was on the controversial Wang Hau-yu and the most wellknown candidate the party had ever nominated, the psychiatrist Teng Hui-wen (鄧惠文). Why then despite adopting such a different campaign strategy in 2020 was the GPT’s vote share almost exactly the same as four years earlier? Following the limited improvement in the 2018 local elections, the preparations switched to the next round of national elections. A first step towards this goal was the election of the 2019–21 GPT committees. The most notable change was that all four elected local councillors were automatically included in the Central Executive Committee, with Yu Hsiao-ching and Liu Chung-hsien as Co-Convenors. A degree of continuity to the past was provided with the inclusion of former CoConvenors Chang Yu-ching and Yang Chang-ling on the Central Executive Committee and founding member Lin Cheng-hsiu on the Central Review Committee. An important new addition was junior academic Rita Jhang (張竹芩), who would become highly visible in the campaign in her role as spokesperson, Deputy Secretary General and party list candidate. One area of continuity, regardless of party leadership, is the GPT’s international engagement. In June 2019, the GPT, Green Party Korea and Greens Japan issued a joint video in support of the Hong Kong anti-extradition protestors.1 Then, in mid-September 2019, Co-Convenors Yu and Liu led a large GPT delegation to visit Greens Japan.

Going it alone or renewing the GPT SDP Alliance? Despite the tensions between the SDP and GPT in both 2016 and 2018, it still looked possible that there could be a repeat of the GPT SDP Alliance in 2020. The parties had reached some limited agreements together with the Taiwan Radical

Teng Hui-wen or Wang Hau-yu GPT campaigns  257 Wings and the Trees Party in 2018. In early August  2019, it was reported that Wang Hau-yu wanted to establish an expanded alliance that would also include the State Building Party (SBP),2 which could enable the third force to cross the 5 percent threshold needed to enter parliament.3 However, it was officially announced on November 9, 2019, that the GPT SDP Alliance would not join the 2020 election.4 It appears that trust had already broken down between the parties in mid-August. Both parties issued acrimonious press releases blaming the other for the breakup of the alliance. The GPT version of the story was centred on the August 18, 2019 GPT SDP Alliance Congress and its immediate aftermath.5 They were dissatisfied that core SDP figures such as Fan Yun and Miao Po-ya had not joined the Congress. However, to make matters worse, Fan and Miao had met up with the NPP days later to discuss cooperation. According to the GPT, ‘this seriously damaged the basis of trust in the GPT SDP Alliance.’6 Additionally, the GPT was unhappy that while Wang Hau-yu had publicly stated he would not accept a DPP offer to join their party list, the SDP’s Fan Yun had refused to make such a pledge. In contrast, according to the SDP version, the GPT had never really been interested in a rerun of the alliance. They noted how the GPT has been unresponsive to the SDP’s repeated calls for negotiating the legalisation of the alliance and how to create the joint party list.7 When the Congress was held on August 18, they blamed the GPT for the breakdown of trust, noting how on the day GPT CoConvenor Yu Hsiao-ching issued a call on her Facebook to ‘vote for the GPT on the party list.’8 Moreover, the SDP was furious that the other GPT Co-Convenor, Liu Chung-hsien, had publicly attacked SDP members (for their meeting with the NPP) and refused to issue a public apology. Although there was not the same level of animosity, on October 22 the GPT announced it had also not been able to reach a cooperation agreement with the SBP.9 Therefore, the GPT would need to contest the 2020 election on its own again.

Failing to pass the threshold again: 2020 elections From Table 4.1, we saw that the GPT’s vote share was slightly down in 2020 at 2.4 percent compared to 2.5 in 2016. However, from Table 4.4 we can see that the GPT’s total vote actually increased to 341,465 compared with 308,106 in 2016. Revisions to the Political Parties Law in 2017 had not reduced the threshold for seats but did reduce the threshold for receiving government election subsidies to 3 percent on the party list. Unfortunately for the GPT, it failed to pass either threshold. Instead, it was the SBP with its 3.1 percent that benefitted from this reform to receive invaluable state funding. Another key feature of the GPT’s 2020 campaign was that it was entirely focused on the party list, and its ten district candidates only received a total of 38,224 votes (0.28%). This was about half the district vote the party had received in 2012. Another way to consider how to evaluate the GPT’s performance is to compare it to those of other small parties from the 2016 campaign. We can do this by contrasting Tables 4.16 and 14.1. With the exception of the small NPP increase, the others either suffered drastic vote reductions or effectively disappeared. The PFP

258  The Wang Hau-yu era Table 14.1 2020 Legislative Yuan Party List Results Party

Vote Total

Vote Share

Seats

DPP KMT TPP NPP PFP SBP GPT NP Taiwan Action Party Alliance (一邊一國行動黨) Stabilising Force Party (安定力量) TSU Congress Party Alliance (國會政黨聯盟) CUPP Interfaith Union (宗教聯盟) Formosa Alliance (喜樂島聯盟) Labor Party United Action Alliance (合一行動聯盟) Taiwan Restoration (台灣維新) Sovereign State for Formosa & Pescadores Party (台澎黨)

4,811,241 4,723,504 1,588,806 1,098,100 518,921 447,286 341,465 147,373 143,617 94,563 50,435 40,331 32,966 31,117 29,324 19,941 17,515 11,952 11,681

33.97 33.35 11.22 7.75 3.66 3.15 2.41 1.04 1.01 0.66 0.35 0.28 0.23 0.21 0.20 0.14 0.12 0.08 0.08

13 13 5 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Note: The MKT was merged into the Congress Party Alliance in early 2019. Source: Online database of the Central Election Commission

party list vote fell from 6.5 percent to 3.6 percent in 2020, the NP from 4.1 percent to only 1 percent and the TSU from 2.5 percent to 0.35 percent. Conservative parties such as the MKT and Faith and Hope Alliance, which had over 1.6 percent in 2016, re-emerged under new labels but only managed between 0.2 and 0.6 percent. Seen from this comparative angle, the GPT’s performance in 2020 looks quite impressive. One thing I had been waiting to see was whether the Trees Party would join the 2020 elections in any format. However, they did not nominate a single candidate, even at the district level. The tensions between the older Tree Protection and Sheng’s Youth Occupy Politics faction seem to have been at the root of the party’s collapse. After the party elders retook control, they appear to have mismanaged the party, so that in September 2019 it was fined NT$1 million for failing to submit its financial reports to the Ministry of Interior.10 Sheng defected to the DPP soon afterwards.

The GPT’s 2020 campaign: what and who is the GPT? In order to understand the GPT’s campaign in 2020, the starting point is its candidates. Because the party essentially abandoned campaigning in the single member districts, it makes sense to focus on the highly visible party list candidates. Here

Teng Hui-wen or Wang Hau-yu GPT campaigns  259 there was an interesting mix of old and new. Second on the 2020 party list was party founder Kao Cheng-yan, returning to contest an election for the first time since 2001. Another fascinating link to the past was that the founder of the 1995 stillborn Green Party, Jay Fang, stood for the GPT for the first time in Taipei City District 1. In his election gazette, he even called himself the ‘GPT initiator’ (綠黨發起人).11 The first placed party list candidate was Teng Hui-wen, the well-known psychiatrist, radio host and bestselling writer. In terms of the GPT’s official communications material, Teng was the face of the GPT for this campaign in 2020. The by-now controversial Wang Hau-yu was placed at number three. The other two party list candidates that featured prominently in the campaign were also breaks from the past. Traditionally, the GPT had tended to nominate older figures with extensive records in either social movements or their professional careers. But this time, the party nominated younger figures at an earlier stage in their careers on its party list. For instance, though Zoe Lee (李 菁 琪) is, like the 2016 candidate Chan Shun-kui, a human rights and environmental lawyer, Lee is much younger (early 30s) and at a much earlier stage in her career. The sixth place candidate, Rita Jhang, was also in her 30s and had a similar background to both Peng Yen-wen and Jolan Hsieh when they had led the party. She was a junior academic, having just completed her PhD, and had experience in Taiwanese student organisations in the US. The next step to understand the GPT’s campaign is to look at its 2020 election gazette. One thing that distinguished the GPT from all the other parties’ sections on the 2020 gazette was that they included pictures of the top three candidates, Kao, Teng and Wang.12 The party’s opening slogan suggested the GPT’s changed approach. Unlike the call to concentrate environmental protection votes on the GPT in 2012, in 2020 the slogan was ‘Protect Taiwan, It’s the Green Party’ (守護 台灣, 就是綠黨).13 In other words, this slogan was quite reminiscent of nationalist appeals used by the TSU or DPP in the past.14 There were a total of 14 different policy proposal themes on the GPT’s gazette listing, and I will just touch upon those that were especially featured in the campaign or that built on earlier campaigns. The first theme was protecting Taiwan’s sovereignty, but interestingly it proposed to do this kind of diplomacy through cooperating with international Green Parties! It retained its traditional anti-nuclear theme but supplemented it with calls for renewable energy solutions such as wind energy and geothermal electricity generation. It even demanded that nuclear waste be shipped back to the US. The GPT also returned to calls for animal rights, including proposing a leopard cat conservation area. There were also appeals clearly targeted at younger voters, such as for more social housing and public kindergartens. With same-sex marriage legislation passed in May 2019, the GPT continued its focus on gender politics issues with calls for adoption rights for same-sex couples, a system for surrogate mothers and banning religious teaching material from being used in schools. The latter point is closely related to the attempts by conservative religious groups to undermine gender equality education in the school system. For the GPT, two new innovative appeals were for euthanasia rights for those with terminal cancer and legalising medical use marijuana.

260  The Wang Hau-yu era As had been the case in 1996, almost all the GPT district candidates carried the party’s core policy appeals on their individual gazette listings.15 While one of the highlights of the GPT’s 2016 campaign had been its large, open-air rallies, in 2020 there was an unprecedented reliance on internet and media campaigning. One way we can see this is in its media advertising spending. The advertising analysis firm Rainmaker estimated GPT advertising spending amounted to NT$149,000 in 2016, and this was just limited to radio advertising.16 In contrast, Rainmaker estimated the GPT’s traditional advertising spending at over NT$3.2 million in 2020. The vast majority of this spending was for cable TV ads, something the GPT had never bought in the past. Furthermore, while the GPT’s advertising spending was tiny compared to its rivals in 2016, in 2020 it actually had higher spending than the NPP, TSU and SBP and was almost as high as the NP! These figures, however, do not capture other important advertising elements such as Facebook or YouTube ads or electronic billboards, which the party also invested heavily in in 2020. A further practice that made the GPT’s communication in 2020 distinctive was its use of public opinion surveys as part of the campaign. A large number of the news items featuring the GPT in this campaign were media reports on the GPT-commissioned surveys. Wang Hau-yu explained that the GPT had been able to commission 25 national surveys and that this ‘created 1,400 news items and countless opportunities to appear on cable TV.’17 Moreover, while other media polls would either exclude or downplay the GPT, at least the GPT was always an option in its own polls. In 2020, the GPT also produced unprecedented numbers of videos for the campaign. The scale of this production is visible both on the party’s Facebook video section and its YouTube channel. In the year leading up to the election, there were over 90 videos on the party’s YouTube channel (compared to only 11 for 2016) and 290 videos on the Facebook page. These included short, 7-second policy slogan ads, a small number of professionally made ads, media appearance video clips, live broadcast video conversations between party list candidates and guests (usually about an hour long) and 3–4-minute videos on different themes. Apart from the number of videos, the other thing that strikes me from a broad sweep of these videos is that Teng Hui-wen featured in the majority of them and that most were very rich in issue content. I will briefly introduce two of the professionally made ads before discussing some of the party’s other communication themes in 2020. The equivalent of the Change ad of 2016 was titled ‘Let People Who Understand You Change the Legislative Yuan’ (讓瞭解您的人改變立法院).18 The ad is narrated by Teng, who starts answering the question of why she decided to join the election. As she is talking, we see clips of the other five party list candidates, each with labels such as organic farmer, nuclear terminator, gender equality, environmental lawyer and anti-Han titan. Teng explains how ‘for over twenty years the GPT has insisted on environmental protection of the land and now we also stress environmental protection of the soul.’19 Teng’s soothing voice gave some of the communication an almost therapeutic effect. Another ad opened with the line, ‘Your shoulders are

Teng Hui-wen or Wang Hau-yu GPT campaigns  261 so tense, you cannot relax for a moment.’20 I have to admit I came out of that ad feeling some of my emotional scars had been healed. However, from the perspective of this book and the history of the GPT, the most interesting professionally made ad featured party founder Kao Cheng-yan.21 He first explained how, back in 1994, he led a recall vote against Han Kuo-yu for breaking his anti-nuclear pledge. Next he told the story of how he had entered the CCP missile zone during the 1996 cross-Strait crisis to protest against Chinese military threats. Perhaps in response to those criticising the GPT for having lost its direction, Kao explained that ‘24 years ago I established the GPT, all along, anti-nuclear, environmental protection, human rights, fighting against the CCP, from my youth to old age, but the GPT’s values have never changed.’22 It is also noteworthy that while the vast majority of GPT videos were in Mandarin, Kao narrated his ad in Taiwanese. As had been the case in 1996, Kao was trying to show that he was the toughest at standing up to China. Wang explained how after having spoken with Kao, he believed the GPT was now returning to its original positions. As the GPT had a clearer position on Taiwan’s independence and Chinese human rights than the DPP, and its ideals were more progressive than the DPP’s. It was only in the last ten years that the GPT became defined as a social movement and environmental protection party.23 The gazette review showed that the GPT did have a number of innovative policy proposals, and the review of its videos revealed how the party’s candidates attempted to explain these pledges at length. For instance, Zoe Lee had a number of videos discussing the intricacies of the proposal to legalise medicinal use of marijuana. Another example was Rita Jhang’s appearance on the televised parties’ policy forum, in which she discussed in detail proposals for legalising euthanasia, as well as adoption rights for same-sex couples.24 In the previous two national elections, one of the most controversial issues for the GPT was its relationship with the DPP and its presidential candidate. In 2020, there were accusations that the GPT approach was more like the NPP’s semialliance with the DPP four years earlier. This is not entirely fair, as the DPP did not offer the GPT any districts to fight against the KMT on the Pan Han-sheng (2012) or NPP/Fan Yun (2016) models. Although there was talk in the media of the DPP offering the GPT a district, nothing ever materialised. In fact, one district where the GPT and DPP did coordinate their nomination was in Taoyuan District 5. Here surveys found the DPP’s candidate 5 percent ahead of the GPT’s, and so the GPT’s Ouyang Ting agreed to withdraw and support the DPP.25 In addition, the GPT’s campaign strategy regarding the presidential election was in sharp contrast to earlier elections. It took a clear stance of supporting the DPP’s presidential candidate for the first time. On its Facebook, the GPT shared a number of video clips of Tsai Ing-wen in the presidential debates attacking her KMT rival Han Kuo-yu. In fact, on a Public Television Service political talk show, Teng explained how she had been approached by other parties but that a critical factor in her decision to

262  The Wang Hau-yu era stand for the GPT was the presidential election. She continued, ‘I would not dare to join a party that does not take a clear stance.’26 A further example of this new GPT–DPP relationship was a video the GPT shared of the DPP’s Taoyuan mayor Cheng Wen-tsan. In the video, Cheng praised the GPT for its record of protecting Taiwan’s democracy and resisting China’s threat to Taiwan.27 However, one of the most visible features of the GPT 2020 campaign was its high level of attacks against the KMT presidential candidate Han Kuo-yu and many of these anti-KMT negative messages were linked to relations with China. Some, for instance, highlighted the police violence against protestors in Hong Kong and Han’s weak response to the crisis.28 The attacks against Han clearly hit a nerve, as Wang became a figure of hate among Han fans both during and after the election. In fact, in one September  2019 Han rally, he directly complained about a Taoyuan councillor who attacks Kaohsiung every day.29 He questioned why, despite being elected in Taoyuan, he does not concentrate on supervising Taoyuan’s city government. In an international media interview, the GPT spokesperson, Rita Jhang, commented that on our social networks, when we talk about practical issues and we analyse concrete policies the views are really low. But when we talk about how bad China is or how horrible are Hong Kong events the views are ten times more. It’s a bit frustrating that if we post a video about a Han Kuo-yu’s blunder we got so much attention and if we post an analysis with lot of work behind so few people read it.30 Although Han represented the principal target of GPT negative campaigning, as had been the case in 1996, the GPT’s attacks were not limited to the KMT’s presidential candidate. Other targets included pro-China figures on the KMT’s party list, as well as rival small parties such as the NPP, TPP and even the PFP and former ally, the Labor Party.31 Moreover, many of these attacks were designed to appeal to anti-CCP or anti-China sentiments. For instance, Wang called on voters to keep the KMT party list vote below 1.59 million to ensure Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷) was not elected at number four on the KMT’s party list.32 Wu is a retired lieutenant general and 800 Heroes for the Republic of China Association president. He was seen as especially controversial due to being filmed standing for the PRC national anthem at an event in Beijing. A related target was Ko Wen-je and his new TPP. For instance, on a politics talk show Wang repeatedly challenged a TPP spokesperson on whether they would support Wu Sz-huai being elected as Convenor of the parliament’s defence committee, seemingly enjoying the spokesperson’s evasive answers.33 Another video shared on the GPT’s Facebook showed a leading TPP figure on a radio show trying to laugh off the question of whether they opposed the PRC’s model for unifying Taiwan, one country two systems.34 There were also numerous videos highlighting Ko’s controversial and often politically incorrect gaffes. In one such case, we see Rita Jhang and Teng Hui-wen on TV news reports criticising Ko for using the term ‘eunuch’ to describe the GPT.35

Teng Hui-wen or Wang Hau-yu GPT campaigns  263 While there were numerous GPT videos attacking the TPP, one small party that did not seem to feature in the GPT’s negative videos was the NPP. However, Wang did find ways to attack this rival. The most obvious case concerned the NPP’s legislator, Kawlo Iyun Pacidal, who in 2015 had switched from the GPT to the NPP. In late July 2019, the GPT revealed that NGOs run by Kawlo’s parliamentary assistant had been awarded subsidies by the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The GPT argued that this represented a conflict of interest as Kawlo was a member of the Legislative Yuan’s Economics Committee.36 This story resulted in much negative media coverage of the NPP in August 2019. Eventually the NPP decided to revoke her membership and thus she lost her seat in parliament. After the election an even more Machiavellian campaign story emerged. Much of the media focused on revelations of how a key figure in the TPP leadership, Chang Yi-shan, had been having an affair with one of the party’s parliamentary assistants.37 However, a side story was more relevant to the GPT campaign. It was revealed that during the campaign, Wang and Chang had secretly discussed GPT TPP cooperation. Readers will recall that Chang was one of the three youngsters who came to Kao with the proposal to form the GPT back in 1995. Wang revealed that they had discussed how to undermine the NPP together. He explained, ‘the TPP did not dare to attack the NPP, it actually wanted the GPT to help.’38 Although the TPP denied that Ko knew about this cooperation and expelled Chang, Wang explained that ‘once Ko Wen-je discovered the GPT could steal NPP votes, he was willing to cooperate with the GPT. This shows just how scheming this man is.’39

Explaining the GPT’s performance in 2020 Once again, I  will start my analysis of understanding the GPT’s performance through the lens of competing party approaches. On the surface, there appeared to be a number of positive developments in the party system. The DPP had disappointed many of its younger civil society-linked supporters in its first few years in power, and its party list in 2020 had fewer social movement figures than four years earlier. The GPT’s main rival in 2016, the NPP, had suffered a wave of scandals and defections and was no longer working in alliance with the DPP. A political scientist who has been intensively studying Taiwan’s small parties in recent years commented, ‘I was expecting them [NPP] to get zero on the proportional representation.’40 Additionally, in the summer of 2019, there also appeared the possibility of GPT alliances with the SDP and also the SBP, in other words, an alliance that could go further than that seen in 2016. When I spoke to party founder and member of the GPT’s Election Strategy Committee, Hung Yu-cheng, in mid-November 2019, he expressed optimism regarding the state of party competition, saying, based on our polls about half the NPP supporters overlap with Ko Wen-je. Ko Wen-je is viewed as light blue. The SBP is a Taiwan independence party, but that is the only thing they talk about. If this could work then the TIP or TSU

264  The Wang Hau-yu era would have succeeded in the past. The GPT can propose policies to claim to be more progressive than the DPP.41 As it turned out, the party system would prove to be even more hostile for the GPT than four years earlier. The DPP’s election strategies appear to have undermined the GPT in a number of ways. Firstly, although the DPP had fewer social movement figures on its party list in 2020, those that were there did have an impact. For instance, at number two on the DPP’s party list was former GPT member, and leading figure in the Green Citizens’ Action Alliance, Hung Shen-han (洪申翰). In Lin Show-tsai’s documentary, Unfinished Progress, it is clear that Hung was playing an important role in Wang Chung-ming’s 2014 campaign. Perhaps even more damaging was placing SDP leader Fan Yun at number three on the DPP party list, rather than allowing her to stand again in Taipei City District 6. This not only hollowed out the SDP but also was a further blow to the prospects of a renewed GPT SDP Alliance. Based on the limited amount of information I have found on the DPP’s cooperation with the GPT, it appears highly Machiavellian (the second time I  have used this word in this chapter). Unlike in 2016, the DPP was now open to cooperating with the GPT in 2020 and, in the words of one party insider, the ‘GPT received funds and resources from the DPP [in 2020].’42 The resources this anonymous informant is referring to here are access to DPP surveys. In return, the GPT appears to have had the task of attacking the KMT, NPP and TPP. Wang Hau-yu and his ally, DPP Taoyuan mayor Cheng Wen-tsan, are the two names that frequently cropped up in discussions about this informal arrangement. Although the cooperation provided the GPT with unprecedented campaign resources, it also had questionable elements. For instance, unlike the DPP’s deal with the NPP in 2016 and the SBP in 2020, the GPT was not offered any single member districts to contest against the KMT. A final area where the DPP had a negative impact on the GPT concerns its strategy in the final days of the campaign. According to Wang Hau-yu, in the weeks leading up to the election, the SBP support level was at 4 percent and the GPT at 3 percent, so he believed that both had a good chance to exceed the 5 percent threshold.43 However, following the large Han rally on the Thursday before the election, he explained the DPP began to play the crisis card and called on voters to concentrate their votes on the DPP to prevent a Han victory and the DPP losing its majority. Wang recalled how the GPT’s polls suddenly fell from 3.5 to 2 percent, but it was clear the DPP was not actually in any danger. Figure 14.1 shows the GPT’s poll figures from 2016 to the aftermath of the 2020 election. Although the party support level had been on the rise since September 2019, it does appear to have fallen in the final week. We can get a sense of Wang’s divided loyalties and the price of the deal with the DPP from his January 16 Facebook post, which he wrote of course I knew that at this time the best method would be to tell everyone that the DPP was not in danger. But I did not, I could not do that. I could not

Teng Hui-wen or Levels Wang Hau-yu GPT campaigns  GPT Survey Support 2016–2020

265

3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0

Figure 14.1  GPT Survey Support Levels 2016–2020 Source: Wang Hau-yu Facebook post, 23 January 2020; Wang Hau-yu Facebook post, 7 March 2020

put the GPT’s interests first if that meant there was the slightest possibility of there not being a [DPP] parliamentary majority and Han Kuo-yu winning the presidency.44 As had been the case for the NPP in 2016, by tying their campaigns so closely to that of the DPP in 2020, both the SBP and GPT were susceptible to the DPP’s last-minute crisis card appeal. In 2020, the GPT also faced much stronger small party competition compared with earlier elections. In 2016, the GPT’s rival small parties were the brand new NPP, the declining TSU and the disorganised Trees Party. But four years later, it faced a much stronger NPP, the growing SBP and the TPP, the last of which would go on to get the highest ever small party vote share since 2008 (11.2 percent). Although much of the discussion on the GPT’s competition centres on the NPP and SBP, Wang believed that it also was hit by the emergence of the TPP in August 2019. He argues that ‘the TPP’s establishment brought another major challenge for the GPT.’45 In fact, from Figure 14.1 we can see that while the GPT had gradually been increasing its support level since March  2019, it did drop back in support in August and September. This may partly explain why the GPT devoted so much effort to attacking the TPP in the campaign. As I watched the 2020 campaign develop, I was struck by how many former GPT supporters were openly coming out in support of the SBP. For instance, on December 31 Chiu Yu-bin made an open appeal to not support the GPT and instead vote SBP.46 An equally damaging case concerned feminist movement activist and scholar Cheng Ling-fang (成令方), who the SBP placed at number one on its party list. Cheng’s selection was significant for the GPT for a

266  The Wang Hau-yu era couple of reasons. Cheng had previously been a GPT supporter and had signed the 2008 GPT campaign endorsement letter mentioned in Chapter 9. The SBP had the reputation of being a male-dominated and hard-line pro-independence party. As a feminist leader and second-generation mainlander, Cheng was able to broaden and soften the SBP’s image and allow it to target a similar type of voter to the GPT. When I  asked the GPT’s spokesperson, Rita Jhang, during the campaign about who she saw as the party’s main competitor, her immediate answer was the SBP. However, she noted the challenge this posed to the GPT that year, as we had to really show our pro-independence position but the SBP had already established itself as the Taidu [Taiwan independence] party. But we really had to sell it, because the discourse of this election was really all about Taiwan independence, if not about independence then about sovereignty, about fighting against China. People were way too scared. So many people I knew who were deciding between. . . . At least from my own echo chamber, the DPP is absolutely up there, as kind of pro-independence and below the DPP is the SBP and GPT. . . . So DPP, SBP and GPT are ranked by how much the possibility for them to fight against China. It’s absolutely the DPP, SBP and then the GPT. So judged by the final vote, that is how we were ranked.47 The NPP’s success in 2020 represents an intriguing puzzle. It managed to increase its vote share despite the numerous defections and scandals, and the fact that it appears many of those who voted NPP in 2016 switched to the SBP four years later. The full answer to this puzzle is beyond the scope of this book, but part of the answer lies in the GPT. According to Wang, their surveys had shown that ‘over 70% of our votes last time for the GPT SDP Alliance had been sucked up by the NPP.’48 This suggests that the GPT vote in 2020 was largely a new set of voters and that if the party had held on to its 2016 support, it should have been much closer to crossing the five percent threshold. The NPP did a number things that made it attractive to former GPT voters. It presented an environmentalist appeal by nominating Chen Chiao-hua (陳椒華) at number one on its party list. Like Kao Cheng-yan, Chen had a long environmental activist record dating back to the 1990s, and she had also led the TEPU and been awarded the Taiwan Environmental Lifetime Achievement Prize in 2017. Additionally, it adopted very similar strategies to the GPT in 2016. For instance, it was quite ambiguous on Taiwan’s sovereignty in the campaign, frequently criticised the DPP and refused to cooperate with the DPP.

The GPT’s 2020 campaign A major challenge to understanding the GPT’s electoral fortunes in 2020 is why it lost former supporters and how it won a similar number of new voters. While the rival party strategies can tell us part of the story, it is more important to look

Teng Hui-wen or Wang Hau-yu GPT campaigns  267 at the GPT’s own campaign. What did it do right and what did it do wrong? To what extent did it balance vote maximisation and adhering to its core party values? My analysis of the evidence suggests that while the party’s ability to attract new supporters was a major achievement, as was in the case of 2016, with a better designed campaign it could have broken into parliament.

Mishandling alliances The breadth and quality of a small party’s alliances can play a key role in determining its electoral strength. Former GPT Co-Convenor Wang Yen-han recalled how ‘in 2016 the insufficient unity between the GPT and SDP had been blamed.’49 Once again, in 2020 the GPT’s handling of alliance negotiations represent a major factor in its failure to expand on 2016. For instance, if it had managed to revive its alliance with the SDP, it would have been in a much stronger position in 2020. This would have meant it no longer needed to waste the candidate deposits for the full ten regional candidates, and so these saved resources could have been better employed elsewhere in the campaign. Although it is unlikely that all those that voted GPT SDP in 2016 could have returned in the advent of a renewed alliance, a significant proportion of voters and candidates could have brought a major boost, perhaps of 1.5 or even 2 percent. As Chiu Yu-bin explained, ‘many friends who supported GPT-SDP Alliance in 2016 were waiting for the formation of the alliance again in 2020. In spite of the efforts from activists of two sides, unfortunately the efforts did not work out in the end.’50 In addition, if a renewed alliance had been agreed, it is unlikely Fan Yun would have accepted the DPP’s invitation to defect. However, a lack of mutual trust between party leaders, as well as negative memories from their cooperation in 2016, undermined alliance talks. One close observer commented, so from who I talked to in the GPT they were really burned by the whole process. It did not go smoothly. They really feel that Fan Yun tried to take advantage of the GPT or at the very least Fan Yun wanted the bigger half of the deal where on the party list it was going to be SDP people first and then GPT people. Because of that they did not really want to work with SDP again.51 Perhaps an even bigger prize could have been won by establishing an alliance with the SBP. Given that the SBP was stronger in southern and central Taiwan and the GPT was stronger in the north, an alliance had much potential. Moreover, the combined totals of the two parties exceeded 5 percent. However, once again despite negotiations, they were unable to reach an agreement due to differences on who was going to run where and party list placement. It seems that the GPT’s experience of cooperating with the SDP in 2016 meant they were scared of compromising too much in alliances. It also appears the GPT mishandled its semi-alliance with the DPP. Unlike the SBP, the GPT had not been able to negotiate the potentially most valuable prize of districts to contest against the KMT. As I was observing the campaign, it struck

268  The Wang Hau-yu era me as odd that a number of long-term GPT figures were not openly supporting the 2020 campaign, and upon probing I discovered they felt uncomfortable about the GPT’s collaboration with the DPP. Furthermore, even some within the GPT campaign team were conscious of the way its support of the DPP in 2020 had alienated many former supporters. For instance, after the election Hung noted that ‘there was absolutely no justification for covering up the ruling party’s mistakes.’52 Chiu Yu-bin, who had become a vocal critique on social media in the campaign, explained that ‘many 2016 supporters who are disappointed by Wang’s right-wing and pro-DPP leadership might have switched to the SBP and NPP.’53 A final element of alliance building where the GPT was not successful was bringing back former environmental movement partners. With the return of Kao to the fold, I was expecting many others to follow. The collapse of the Trees Party meant there was the possibility to bring key figures back into the GPT. Instead, the Trees Party’s most visible candidate from 2018, Sheng I-che, chose to defect to the DPP. When I asked Hung about the relations with social movements, he admitted, ‘now it is very bad.’54 He explained that in the current climate he was finding it hard bringing back old allies, as we are no longer in our 20s, we’re 50 now. Some are now very settled in our jobs, including some in the DPP government. Also this is cooperation and not a purge where we kick out the youngsters. So some people are waiting to see how it turns out. They say, ‘I know what you are trying to do and I am willing to help, but at this stage I cannot openly take the GPT label until I am sure you have got these youngsters under control.’ They are willing to help discuss policies or join activities. But they are not yet willing to represent the GPT.55

GPT campaign communication, candidates and issues The GPT’s election campaign team deserves much credit for its election performance in 2020. This is how Rita Jhang described her impression of the team: ‘I think they are a bunch of really smart and capable young people. They still abide by the six core values, but they are more interested in running elections and they are pretty good at it.’56 Additionally, they had more senior and experienced advice from figures such as Hung Yu-cheng and Kao Cheng-yan. The quantity and quality of the party’s campaign communication was unprecedented. On January 1, Wang wrote that ‘now is the moment that the GPT has the highest visibility in its history.’57 A sign of the quality of the GPT’s communication came in political scientist Nathan Batto’s analysis of the party list TV debate, in which he said the Green Party was the biggest winner today. They had the best performer on the stage (Wang Hao-yu 王浩宇 is a future political star) and also the most coherent message. Unlike everyone else, they had a consistent theme throughout the debate: the Green Party has ideals  – environmentalism,

Teng Hui-wen or Wang Hau-yu GPT campaigns  269 pluralism, and sovereignty – that guide its decisions. Wang used this theme to attack the other parties.58 A key element to understanding the GPT’s impact is its most focal top three party list candidates. The nomination of Teng Hui-wen was the masterstroke of the GPT’s 2020 campaign. According to Wang Yen-han, among all the candidates that had ever been on the GPT’s party list, Teng ‘was the most well known nationally and had the best image.’59 Both Chiu Yu-bin and Peng Yen-wen viewed her as the key reason that the party was able to attract new voters.60 Rita Jhang explained that in the past election our leading person has been Dr Teng and she has been a figure of feminism, of mundane feminism for regular people. She has such an amazing way of doing that so regular people who are not necessarily well educated know what she is trying to say and accept it.61 In fact, in the final pre-election survey, those planning to vote GPT were asked their main reasons for supporting the party. After GPT’s party ideals, the second most common reason was because of Teng Hui-wen.62 In contrast to the extraordinary impact of Teng Hui-wen’s candidacy, the second placed party list candidate, Kao Cheng-yan, seems to have had a much lower effect. This was apparent from comparing the 100,000 Facebook video views of the main ads featuring Teng to only 10,000 for Kao’s ad. With such an extensive environmental record and the way he was branded as someone that stood up to China, I had expected him to be more of a vote winner. Peng’s explanation was that ‘most younger voters do not know him and the middle aged and older environmentalists’ votes were divided between the DPP and NPP.’63 While Hung Yu-cheng argued that though Kao may appeal to some of the older Taiwan independence activists, the younger generation and pro-independence voters went to the SBP.64 A much more complex and at times contradictory picture emerges when it comes to the impact of the third placed party list candidate, Wang Hau-yu. Wang played a critical role in raising the GPT’s media profile and campaign funds to unprecedented levels. Rita Jhang noted that their post-election analysis suggested he had attracted about 1  percent of the party’s 2.4  percent vote share.65 Wang defended himself against those blaming him for the result, arguing that the data showed he had personally increased the GPT vote by 60,000 votes.66 One way to see his impact is from the fact that the GPT enjoyed its second highest vote share in Taoyuan City (just below Taipei City), and the vote share in Wang’s Chungli District was the highest for all Taiwan’s districts and townships, at almost 4.6 percent. Nevertheless, there were far more examples of critical evaluations of Wang’s role in the 2020 campaign. Environmentalist Angela Chang argued Wang had ‘single-handedly destroyed the whole party’ and that ‘under Wang Hau-yu’s leadership the GPT had become a despicable flank party.’67 The popular blogger

270  The Wang Hau-yu era Fengyenfengyu (峰言峰語) compared the positive media coverage of the SBP’s main district candidate with that of Wang Hau-yu.68 He challenged Wang’s claim that the GPT should thank him for raising their media visibility by citing the case of Ting Hsin’s high media exposure, caused by its tainted cooking oil scandal. He asked, ‘do you think they [Ting Hsin] want that kind of visibility?’ He continued, saying that ‘gaining a bad reputation must be avoided. If a party has a bad candidate, it must immediately get rid of them. Otherwise the capital that has been accumulated over many years will be destroyed.’69 While Peng did not go so far as to follow other party members, such as Chiu Yu-bin, in openly calling on voters not to vote GPT to punish Wang, she did explain that ‘under Wang Hau-yu’s leadership the GPT has changed too much. Its policy line is not clear, so I could not openly support it.’70 Even those that worked with Wang in the 2020 campaign generally were also critical. Although Hung Yu-cheng did not refer to Wang by name, we can take him as a representative figure of the group to which Hung was referring when he said, ‘some are in their 30s, they use criticising people to gain Internet popularity. They can get some support among youngsters doing this. But this is not right and not enough.’71 Although Rita Jhang did acknowledge Wang’s contribution to the campaign and the party, she concluded by saying, ‘but I would say Hau-yu or his style of running the party did cause huge trouble for the GPT.’72

Conclusions In Part V, we have seen how the GPT performed in the aftermath of its 2016 setback. If we think back to the party lifespan model I raised in Chapter 2, then we can say that in the Wang Hau-yu years the GPT first passed the threshold of recovery and then that of competitivity. It enjoyed its best ever local election results in 2018 and on the eve of the 2020 election had its highest ever support polls. Just as Lee Ken-cheng attempted to bring a radical change in the party’s mode of operation compared to that associated with Pan Han-sheng, Wang tried to transform the GPT. While Wang’s era is associated with the idea of an electionoriented party and what he would call the resist China protect Taiwan line, the Lee-era GPT is seen having adopted the social movement line. If we consider the dichotomy between vote maximising and party core values, Wang’s critics would say he prioritised vote maximising and neglected party values, while Lee did the opposite. What connects the two approaches is that while both GPTs had the opportunity to make a breakthrough into the national parliament, they ended up getting almost exactly the same vote share. Although both the Lee- and Wang-led GPTs faced highly competitive and hostile party systems, the key to understanding their similar electoral outcomes lies in their balancing between vote maximising and party values. Both GPTs lost the chance to expand their vote base by seriously mishandling their party alliances. Both GPTs managed to alienate party activists and supporters, giving the public the impression of party division. In both cases, the parties appear to have been victims of the China factor. As Wang Yen-han commented, ‘in 2016 it was Chou Tzu-yu and in 2020 it was the Hong Kong anti-extradition to China (protests).’73

Teng Hui-wen or Wang Hau-yu GPT campaigns  271 In 2020, the GPT engaged more directly with the China issue but the outcome was the same; according to Hung Yu-cheng, ‘this time the GPT did not get Taiwan independence votes.’74 While the GPT SDP Alliance was too wary of any open cooperation with the DPP, the Wang-led GPT alienated supporters by tying itself too uncritically to the DPP. For many, Wang was engaging in a Faustian bargain, selling the party’s soul for campaign funds and visibility. While the GPT SDP Alliance was able to generate support with a combination of its district and party list candidates, the Wang-led GPT achieved unprecedented visibility through its two star party list candidates. The Wang-led GPT was much more successful at fundraising and gaining media visibility, but one key lesson from 2020 was that the party suffered from a lack of presence on the ground. In other words, the GPT paid the price for allowing many of the party branches that had emerged in the Pan and Lee eras to wither away. Lastly, the GPT in 2020 suffered from an incoherent set of policy and candidate appeals. While there were problems with the 2016 policy approach, it did have a clear focus on environmentalism, labour issues and LGBT rights. In contrast, with the party mainly represented by the contrasting styles of Teng Hui-wen and Wang Hau-yu, it was much harder to categorise. Moreover, as much as Teng could attract new supporters, Wang appears to have alienated similar numbers of original supporters. In particular, the Wang-led GPT had managed to lose most of the social movement support base the party had built up over the previous decades. How would the GPT respond to its latest electoral setback? What are its future prospects? What are the key lessons of the GPT’s first 24 years? These are questions I will turn to in the final chapter.

Notes

1 GPT, Facebook post, 19 June 2019, www.facebook.com/watch/?v=871721469857472. 2 The Taiwan Radical Wings changed its name to the State Building Party in April 2019. 3 UDN Evening News, 12 August 2019, B2 Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Miaoli News. 4 Chou Chia-hao, ‘GPT SDP Cooperation Breaks Down,’ Newtalk, 10 November 2019, https://newtalk.tw/news/view/2019-11-10/323677. 5 GPT, Facebook post, 9 November  2019, www.facebook.com/TaiwanGreenParty/ posts/10158051056551159. 6 Ibid. 7 SDP Facebook post, 10 November  2019, www.facebook.com/sdparty.tw/posts/2615 312218558016/. 8 Ibid. 9 GPT, Facebook post, 22 October 2019, www.facebook.com/TaiwanGreenParty/posts/ 10157992471986159/. 10 Peopo Citizen Journalism, 26 November 2019, www.peopo.org/news/432903. 11 http://bulletin.cec.gov.tw/. 12 Two other parties that also included photographs were the TPP and Congress Party Alliance, but instead of candidates they showed their spiritual leaders. These are Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je for the TPP and the Buddhist master Miao Tien (妙天) for the Congress Party Alliance. 13 The English language version of the slogan was ‘Taiwan Wins! Just Green!’ 14 For instance, in 2004 the DPP used the slogan ‘Protect Taiwan Fight Against China’ (顧台灣, 拚中國).

272  The Wang Hau-yu era 15 In 2020, the only exception to this pattern was the ‘GPT initiator’ Jay Fang. 16 The Rainmaker database includes newspaper, television, radio and magazine advertising spending. 17 Wang Hau-yu, Facebook post, 1 January  2020, www.facebook.com/WangHauYu/ posts/10207219131874692. 18 www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTWhU7tGPFA. 19 Ibid. 20 www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeJI08JbWeU. 21 www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTyqkNcQ_PA. 22 Ibid. 23 Wang Hau-yu, Facebook post, 24 September 2019. 24 www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwVTrYJhXGo&t=200s. 25 GPT, Facebook post, 9 October 2019, www.facebook.com/TaiwanGreenParty/videos/ 468202567113463/. 26 GPT, Facebook post, 3 December 2019, www.facebook.com/TaiwanGreenParty/videos/ 516041129010798/. 27 GPT, Facebook post, 17 October 2019, www.facebook.com/TaiwanGreenParty/videos/40 0692650822018/. 28 GPT, Facebook post, 8 September 2019, www.facebook.com/TaiwanGreenParty/videos/ 871233799937358/. 29 GPT, Facebook post, 9 September 2019, www.facebook.com/TaiwanGreenParty/videos/ 1372277342925103/. 30 ‘Taiwan 2020 Election, Green Party,’ Affaritaliani, 29 November 2019, www.affarital iani.it/politica/geopolitica/taiwan-2020-election-green-party-taiwan-rita-jhang.html. 31 Previously Chou Chiang-chieh had cooperated with the Labor Party in Hsinchu County Council, but in 2020 the Labor Party’s pro-unification stance led it to be attacked by the Wang led GPT. 32 www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRYZb_ByTTA. 33 GPT, Facebook post, 13 December  2019, www.facebook.com/TaiwanGreenParty/ videos/822310894895071/. 34 GPT, Facebook post, 14 December  2019, www.facebook.com/watch/?v=583956112 148678. 35 GPT, Facebook post, 19 December  2019, www.facebook.com/TaiwanGreenParty/ videos/542858703110830/. 36 Taipei Times, 31 July 2019, 3. 37 The story broke in March 2020 and was thus just before the decriminalisation of adultery ruling in May. 38 Liberty Times, 11 March  2020, https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/politics/breakingnews/ 3096636. 39 Ibid., https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/politics/breakingnews/3096636. 40 Interview, 20 July 2020. 41 Hung Yu-cheng, 14 November 2020. 42 Anonymous party insider, 2020. 43 Wang Hau-yu, Facebook post, 18 January 2020. 44 Wang Hau-yu, Facebook post, 16 January 2020. 45 Wang Hau-yu, Facebook post, 11 January 2020. 46 Chiu Yu-bin, Facebook post, 31 December 2019. 47 Rita Jhang, 18 July 2020. 48 Chiao Wei-kang (喬偉鋼), ‘Wang Hau-yu Announces He Is Leaving the GPT: I Am Tired,’Up Media, 12 January 2020, www.upmedia.mg/news_info.php?SerialNo=79394. 49 Wang Yen-han, Facebook post, 12 January 2020. 50 Chiu Yu-bin, email, 14 July 2020. 51 Interview, 20 July 2020.

Teng Hui-wen or Wang Hau-yu GPT campaigns  273 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74

Hung Yu-cheng, Facebook post, 17 January 2020. Chiu Yu-bin, email, 14 July 2020. Hung Yu-cheng, 14 November 2020. Ibid. Rita Jhang, 18 July 2020. Wang Hau-yu, Facebook post, 31 December 2019. Frozen Garlic (blog), ‘The Party List Debate,’ 16 December 2019, https://frozengarlic. wordpress.com/2019/12/16/the-party-list-debate/. Wang Yen-han, Facebook post, 12 January 2020. Chiu Yu-bin and Peng Yen-wen, emails, 14 July 2020. Rita Jhang, 18 July 2020. Liberty Times, 14 January 2020. Peng Yen-wen, email, 14 July 2020. Hung Yu-cheng, Facebook message, 24 July 2020. Rita Jhang, 18 July 2020. Liberty Times, 14 January 2020. Angela Chang, Facebook post, 12 January 2020. Fengyenfengyu, Facebook post, 23 December 2019. Ibid. Peng Yen-wen, email, 14 July 2020. Hung Yu-cheng, 14 November 2019. Rita Jhang, 18 July 2020. Wang Yen-han, Facebook post, 12 January 2020. Hung Yu-cheng, Facebook post, 17 January 2020.

Part VII

Conclusion

15 Conclusion The aftermath, rebranding, returning to research questions and practical lessons

As I write, it is now late summer 2020, eight months after the January election. It is almost eight years since I received that life-changing email from the GPT’s Co-Convenor that led me to start this research project. In this final chapter, I will assess how the party responded to its latest failure to make a national election breakthrough and its initial attempts to rebrand itself. Next, I will briefly return to the core research questions and theories that I set out in Chapters 1 and 2 and summarise the key findings. Lastly, I will end by outlining some of the key practical lessons that I believe have emerged from my analysis of the first 24 years of the GPT’s history. Naturally, I hope they will be useful for future GPT campaigns but they may also be relevant to other ecological and social movement-linked parties.

Aftermath of the election When the final votes had been counted on the evening of January 11, 2020, it was clear that despite achieving its highest ever vote total, the GPT had again failed to win national parliamentary seats. As had been the case in 2016, the results were met with tears, resignations and recriminations. However, the state of the party in the immediate aftermath in 2020 was quite distinct from the previous two national elections. While in 2016 it was the two Co-Convenors that resigned, in 2020 it was the GPT’s controversial city councillor, Wang Hau-yu, who resigned from the Central Executive Committee and announced he was leaving the GPT. Within a month he had defected to the DPP. What is interesting is that it was a relatively amicable divorce. The remaining core leadership did not publicly criticise Wang or beg him to stay. At the same time, Wang has not harshly attacked the GPT since leaving. Although Wang warned the party against returning to the social movement line, he did still urge his supporters to donate to the party.1 The GPT’s official statement wished Wang the best of luck for his future goals.2 I have found that many people who worked closely with Wang see both his positive and negative sides. The current Secretary General, Rita Jhang, explained that ‘despite all his controversies, he did contribute to the GPT tremendously. No one can deny that.’3 There were some attacks against Wang from GPT figures such as Lo Yue-feng following the

278  Conclusion election, but these were not on the scale of the recriminations seen against Pan Han-sheng in 2012 or Lee Ken-cheng after 2016.

Rebuilding and rebranding Wang Hau-yu argued that his departure had left the GPT facing an existential crisis.4 In June 2020, he highlighted how the party’s support levels, media coverage and internet traffic have collapsed.5 The survey data shown in Figure  14.1 does suggest a post-election drop in GPT party identification. In addition, Wang’s departure meant that a number of large donors stopped contributing to the GPT. Nevertheless, the GPT now looks much stronger and more united than it was in the aftermath of either 2012 or 2016. Wang’s resignation meant it was much easier to start rebuilding and rebranding the party compared to the more protracted departures of Pan Han-sheng (after 2012) and Lee Ken-cheng (after 2016). However, as Harmel and Janda remind us, ‘parties are basically conservative organizations that will not change for the sake of change’ (1994, 264). Since most of the core GPT leadership did not leave in the aftermath of the 2020 election, so far party change has been gradual rather than a revolution. Nevertheless, there do seem to be some attempts to reform the party by learning lessons from the setback. When I  asked the new Secretary General, Rita Jhang, about her experiences since taking office, she said that at first I felt this was an extremely difficult job for me. Because all I had to do, the only thing I had to do was to mend relationships. To reconnect ties that had been cut because of Hau-yu. I felt like I was shouldering all the guilt left from Hau-yu on me.6 This kind of mending relationships involves both individuals and NGOs. For instance, some figures that had drifted away from the party, such as Robin Winkler, have been brought back into the fold. Jhang also explained how at the end of the election, during the campaign and right after there was a really heated debate in the party about what route do we take. It has been reduced to a really weird binary, it’s either are you the social movement route or election route?7 One notable area where the new GPT has been trying to reconnect has been with social movements, such as the algal reef protection group in Taoyuan. That environmental group had been alienated by Wang Hau-yu’s support for the Liquid Natural Gas port terminal project that was being promoted by his DPP ally Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan. A joint press conference protesting against Tsai Ing-wen’s failure to fulfil her pledge to protect the algal reefs in Taoyuan on July 20, 2020, is an example of how the party was changing.8 The GPT’s Rita Jhang joined Pan

Conclusion  279 Chung-cheng (潘忠政) of the Rescue Datan’s Algal Reefs Alliance and the NPP’s legislator Chen Chiao-hua. It is hard to imagine Wang joining such a press conference, due not only to his support for the project but also his antagonism with the NPP. There was a similar pattern of the GPT publicly supporting a protest movement to protect residents being relocated to make way for the Tainan underground railway project. These two cases are linked by the fact that the GPT has chosen to support protests that are in opposition to development projects promoted by the DPP local and national governments. It was clear from talking to Jhang that she hopes to see the party achieve a better balance between the social movement and election routes, as well as in its relations with other parties. Although the GPT appears to be detaching itself from the DPP compared to the Wang era, it is continuing its strong position on Taiwan’s sovereignty. For instance, it has also called for constitutional reform, particularly highlighting the articles stipulating unification. Similarly, it came out in support of the proposals to change the name of the national carrier from China Airlines to Taiwan Airlines.9 A final area where there does seem to be a pattern of change concerns gender. The GPT has gender quotas for its Central Executive Committee, a male/female co-convenor system, and was a pioneer in nominating openly gay candidates. However, at times, it appeared to be quite a male-dominated party in the Lee and Wang eras. There seems to be a concerted effort to change this imbalance. A starting point was the central role that Teng Hui-wen played in the 2020 campaign. In the aftermath, Co-Convenor Yu Hsiao-ching has become the party’s focal elected figure. For instance, she has received significant media attention for her vocal opposition to a garbage incinerator project in Hsinchu County. Despite being the only GPT member of the county council, her attempts to expose local governance to greater scrutiny have touched a raw nerve, and the KMT majority chose to temporarily suspend her council membership.10 Moreover, the Secretary General and Deputy Secretary General are now both female as well. This is in sharp contrast to the way a number of rival parties are led by male politicians that project rather macho images, such as Huang Kuo-chang (NPP), Ko Wen-je (TPP) and Chen Yichi (SBP). Rita Chang suggested that the GPT can distinguish itself by highlighting ‘our gentle and caring characteristics.’11 Based on the GPT’s record in the eight months since the election, it is clear it is engaging in a serious effort to rebuild and rebrand the party. It appears to be far more active and vibrant than after the 2012 or 2016 elections. Will it be able to achieve a better balance between the priorities of core party values and elections than the Pan, Lee or Wang models? We will have to wait for the 2022 local elections for the preliminary answer. Based on what I have observed so far, I am cautiously optimistic. Unfortunately, I  cannot say the same about my second case study, the Trees Party. On April 28, 2020, the Ministry of Interior announced it was cancelling the registration of 171 political parties, and the Trees Party was one of them.12 Other dissolved parties that have featured in this book included the NNA, TIP, CSDP, MKT, FHA, Third Society Party and the National Health System Alliance.

280  Conclusion

Returning to theory and research questions In Chapter 1, I introduced my core research questions and went on to discuss them in more detail in Chapter 2. I termed these my ‘so what,’ ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions. My first ‘why’ question considered how to explain the emergence of the Green Parties. This question was addressed with reference to theories of movement party formation as well as party switching. To answer my ‘so what’ question, I employed a lifespan model to track the overall impact and development of the Green Parties. I particularly focused on the parties’ electoral fortunes and international engagement to show whether the parties crossed key development thresholds. My ‘how’ questions engaged with the theme of party change. These were subdivided into ‘what’ and ‘who’ questions. The former thus considered what the GPT is. I examined this party change theme by looking at how the GPT’s issue and campaign strategies have evolved over time. The latter examined who the GPT are. This was done by analysing the changing human face of the parties, with introductions to key party figures as well as the sociological background of party members and voters. With the ‘so what’ and ‘how’ questions answered, I could then address my second and third ‘why’ questions. In other words, in the empirical chapters the focus shifted to explaining why the parties had changed their campaign strategies and how best to explain their electoral performances. I relied heavily on Harmel and Janda’s framework for explaining party change with reference to external stimuli such as electoral defeat and changes in the inner-party balance of power, particularly leadership and factional changes (1994). In order to explain the parties’ electoral performance, I engaged with two main theoretical approaches. The first built on Meguid’s (2008) argument that mainstream parties’ strategies towards niche parties are critical to understanding the survival of these smaller parties. Additionally, I showed that we also need to factor in the impact of rival challenger parties on the niche parties. The classic case that is discussed in Chapters 12, 13 and 14 is the threat the NPP posed to the GPT. However, like Spoon (2011), I argued that more important than party system factors is niche party agency. My case studies revealed that the Green Parties’ electoral defeat was never inevitable and that with better campaign strategies they could have been much more successful. Time and again, I showed that the key to explaining electoral performance lay in the quality of the campaign, in particular the ability to strike the right balance between vote maximisation and core party values. This dichotomy was most recently conceptualised earlier in this chapter as between the social movement and election route. Although I have tried to engage with political science theories in my analysis of the Taiwan’s ecological parties, it was also crucially important for me to make sure the flavours, sounds and fragrances of party politics came though. I wanted readers to experience the human side of alternative politics in Taiwan by examining campaign material and hearing the voices of Green Party activists. I hope readers will also appreciate their idealism, passion and sacrifices. Although writing this book has been much harder than my first and second books, the research has been much more enjoyable and meaningful.

Conclusion  281

Practical lessons for the Green Parties Back at the initial design stage of this project, I proposed that in addition to academic publications, I would aim to ‘produce a formal report looking at how the Green Party could learn from past experience and also other social movements/ foreign Green Parties to improve its impact and electoral performance.’13 So in this final section, I am returning to where the project first started off, my promised practical lessons report. I admit it is almost eight years late, but hopefully the extra research time and data will give my conclusions a little more weight. Alliances and inter-party relations One of the most troublesome issues that has faced the GPT throughout its history has been its relationship with mainstream parties, particularly the DPP. The experience of both the GPT and other small parties shows there is not a simple answer for how best to engage with the mainstream parties that are ideologically proximate. The DPP and KMT have repeatedly sought to take over small parties using a range of strategies. The GPT will need to find a balance between having no relations at all with the DPP and being no more than a DPP faction. In 2012, 2016 and 2020, the GPT did not handle its relationship with the DPP successfully. The example of the NPP in 2016 has shown how it was able to negotiate a cooperation deal with the DPP that gave it districts to contest and win. Since entering parliament, it has been able to operate in an autonomous manner, in which it sometimes supports and sometimes opposes the DPP government. The GPT could adopt a similar model of selective cooperation and opposition with the DPP. At the same time, it would need to ensure it can project a distinct party image. Looking ahead to 2024, it should not rule out a deal with the DPP on the model of the NPP’s in 2016. The first time the GPT openly supported a DPP presidential candidate was in 2020, and therefore it will be hard not to take a stand in 2024. However, a prerequisite will be first achieving an internal consensus on whether to support the DPP’s presidential candidate and whether to negotiate a deal. A related challenge will be managing the GPT’s relationships with other small or medium-sized parties. We have seen how these competing challenger parties have had a major impact on the GPT’s development. It is inevitable that there will be a degree of competition between the four movement-linked parties, the GPT, NPP, SDP and SBP. At times, even the TPP has paid lip service to issues of concern to civil society, and some ex-GPT figures have joined the TPP. Who will be the strongest of the third force parties? However, there should be scope for cooperation in both local and national elections. One major question is which small parties are potential partners. The evidence suggests this should be limited to those parties ideologically close to the GPT, though this is something that will change as parties evolve. However, it appears that the GPT’s limited cooperation with the MKT and Ko Wen-je in 2018 was perceived as a betrayal of the party’s soul. Campaigns in 2016 and 2020 represent examples of failed attempts at progressive party alliances. But these failures were not inevitable; instead, with

282  Conclusion different negotiation approaches, the outcomes could have been radically different. However, if a progressive alliance is to be possible for 2024, it will require a gradual building up of cooperation experience and mutual trust. As with cooperation with the DPP, internal consensus must be achieved that gives GPT party leaders a mandate to negotiate. A third element of alliance building that the GPT will need to face is its relationship with social movements. This is all the more pressing for the party as it emerged from a social movement alliance in the first place and had long sought to market itself as a representative of progressive civil society. A constant theme in this book is that there have often been tensions between the GPT and civil society groups, even when the party had a more explicit social movement identity in the Pan and Lee eras. However, the damage done during the Wang era will be harder to repair. This even harmed the party’s reputation internationally. It is encouraging to see that the new leadership has begun to mend broken ties with many movements. This task has become even more challenging as Taiwan’s progressive civil society has become much more diverse, in terms not only of advocacy issues but also generationally. As with its relationship with other political parties, its social movement alliance requires a degree of balancing. The GPT is a political party and should not blindly support all protest movements. It also needs to advocate potential solutions and legislation to resolve the issues at the heart of protest movements. Considering the nature of the other third force parties, the GPT has a real chance to rebuild its status as the representative of progressive civil society. Organisational change In addition to adjustments to the GPT’s external alliances, it will need internal organisational change to become more competitive and sustainable. One of the most constant themes in my GPT research interviews has been the lack of funds. This has undermined the party’s campaigns as well as its ability to conduct routine operations between elections. Taiwanese elections are expensive and the GPT is competing with parties that not only have better fundraising systems but also enjoy government subsidies as a result of passing the 3 percent party list threshold. The GPT will need to improve and diversify its fundraising systems so that they not only include regular small donations but also receive support from businesses that have similar values. In the search for financial sustainability, the party will need to avoid the temptation of accepting funds from questionable donors that could undermine the party’s reputation and autonomy. This is something that arguably did occur in the latter part of the Wang era. In addition to having the funds to pay the office rent and the administrative and public relations staff, the party needs efficient administrative systems. At times the party has struggled with the most mundane administrative work, such as keeping meeting records and financial accounts. As Rita Jhang explained, ‘all these details which I used to think were boring and a waste of time. Now I know they make or break a party, a small party like GPT.’14

Conclusion  283 Human resources are as important as financial and organisational resources. The GPT has rarely had more than a few hundred members. A major drive to expand its membership levels would allow the party to increase its funds but also be important for election campaigning and as a pool for future candidates. In addition to the number of members, it is also important to attract a more diverse membership and activist base. Greater effort should be made to bring back former members. A key finding in my research has been that the GPT has accumulated skills and experience but that this has been wasted when these activists departed. For instance, the vast majority of its candidates have only ever stood once for the party. Thus, it is promising to see the way the new GPT leadership team has brought back key actors, such as Winkler and Kao. Another potential figure to bring back that springs to mind is the Tamsui candidate, Wang Chung-ming, with his rich election, media, movement and prison experience. Much more could be done to bring back lost talent. The GPT has frequently been the victim of other parties poaching its politicians. Therefore, it needs to find a way to hold on to its human resources. In addition, though, it should also be more proactive at recruiting defectors from other parties. Naturally, this should not follow the model adopted by the mainstream parties and their splinters, whereby they will accept almost any opportunist politicians so long as they have local political strength. However, there is a pool of potential progressive recruits that were in the SDP, Trees Party or who have quit the NPP. Movement-linked politicians that have previously been in the DPP are another possibility. We should recall that the current GPT is now led by two defectors from other movement parties. A final area where the party needs to invest more in its regular operations is in its public relations. Often the party has been able to make up for its limited presence on the ground and financial resources with innovative internet campaigning and media visibility. In the realm of internet communication and social media, the GPT has often punched above its weight. However, many of these initiatives have been short lived, non-institutionalised or reliant on key individuals. For instance, Pan Han-sheng and Wang Hau-yu were both able to attract high media visibility. While the GPT invested heavily in its website under Lee, it was badly neglected under Wang. Again, though, there are promising signs, as the GPT made very effective use of a range of social media communication tools in the 2020 campaign, and I understand it plans to relaunch its website in the summer of 2020. Improving GPT campaigns There are numerous potential ways that the GPT could improve its election campaigns in the future. Let me just touch upon a few that scream out from the experience of the last 24 years. A key starting point has to be candidates. Different types of candidates are needed for local district and party list contests. For district elections, it is essential to find candidates that are willing to start campaigning early and to develop their support networks there. They need to have the belief that they really can win

284  Conclusion election rather than just campaign to promote their ideals. Moreover, they should be prepared to run a second time if they do not succeed the first time. Unfortunately, all too often candidates have quit after their initial setbacks and lost valuable experience. As for the party list, what is needed is candidates that can expand the party’s support base and will also campaign hard. The classic example was Teng Hui-wen’s candidacy in 2020. In addition to having hard-working and attractive candidates, the best GPT campaigns have had excellent campaign teams. We saw this in the 1998 Peng Yen-wen case, where this was a key difference between her campaign and the other GPT candidates in Taipei that year. Moreover, strong campaign teams have often ended up being the training ground for subsequent campaigns. We saw how campaign members from Liang Yi-chi’s 2014 team later went on to stand for election in 2016 and 2018. The cases in this book have also shown that, given the GPT’s limited resources, it is important to concentrate funds on winnable and strategically important districts. One consideration should be to contest seats where the party had strong support and local party organisation. Local elections can also have an important knock-on effect on the next round of national elections. One major party error the GPT made was that it did not build on the strong local campaigns in Kaohsiung in 2014 and 2016 or Tainan in 2016, and instead it let both branches fade away. This allowed the NPP and SBP to step in, and the GPT would pay the price in its poor performance in these southern cities in 2020. A key task in the next few years therefore should be to rebuild its regional branches, at least in the main urban districts. Another location where the party should nominate again for strategic reasons is Taipei City, where it was traditionally strong and received a high party list vote share. A further lesson from the case studies in this book is that the most successful campaigns feature a range of campaigning styles. In other words, they include both modern and traditional campaigning methods. If we take the example of Wang Hau-yu, he relied heavily on his Facebook fan page but also spent much time speaking at traffic intersections. In many cases, candidates told me that no matter how hard they were campaigning, they still struggled to make a support breakthrough. A key factor appears to be whether they were able to gain mainstream media attention. Calvin Wen argued that Peng’s media coverage was what set their campaign alight compared to the other 1998 GPT campaigns. Similarly, one of Wang Chung-ming’s post-election regrets in 2014 was that he did not take his chances to get on to television to raise his visibility. The case studies examined here suggest the GPT candidates and the party should unashamedly highlight their party identity. Their social movement roots, the concern for the environment, opposition to nuclear energy, LGBTQ rights, animal rights, gender equality and ties to the Global Green network are all party assets. Moreover, the GPT has time and again advocated innovative new policy issues that set it apart from other parties, such as proposing medicinal use of marijuana and euthanasia rights for terminally ill patients in 2020. While other parties may have more resources, the GPT has the advantage of a coherent package of

Conclusion  285 progressive policies. In contrast, most of the other small parties are either policy light or very narrow in their policy agenda. Although the GPT will not win national or local majorities, they should be able to win the support of enough of their target voters to cross the local council and party list thresholds. There are a large number of younger and middle-aged voters that are alienated from mainstream parties, which the GPT can target with its distinctive image. However, a Green Party that loses or sells its soul is no longer a Green Party. Therefore, the attempts both during and after the 2020 election to reconnect to the party’s core values are very encouraging. Given that many leading political scientists writing about Taiwan view national identity and relations with China as by far the most important variable in understanding voting behaviour, I need to say a few words on how the GPT should handle this topic (Achen and Wang 2017). The GPT has adopted different strategies over the years, ranging from largely ignoring it, taking a clear pro-independence position but not overly stressing it, to competing to be the strongest at standing up to China. Given the threat China poses towards Taiwan’s democracy and the rise in Taiwanese national identity, the GPT’s stress on defending Taiwan’s sovereignty seen in 2020 made sense. However, for both ethical and strategic reasons, the GPT should avoid the kind of exclusive ethnic Taiwanese nationalist appeals being employed by some of its rivals. This is partly because Taiwan’s voters tend to reject parties when they become too extreme, but also because many existing and potential GPT supporters are uncomfortable with hard-line Taiwanese nationalism. As the most international party in Taiwan, it makes sense to advocate a more inclusive multi-cultural and civic nationalism, which can also include groups that are often neglected and discriminated against, such as Taiwan’s Indigenous Peoples, new marriage migrants, overseas contract workers and long-term non-citizen residents. This would be more in keeping with the internationalism of the global green movement. Many of these suggestions may seem like common sense, but experience has shown putting them into practice is easier said than done. If successful, the GPT has the potential to be promoted to the ranks of the premier league of global Green Parties.

Final words Over the past 24 years, the GPT has made an important contribution to Taiwan’s democracy. It has often been ahead of its time on issues such as nuclear energy, LGBT rights and animal welfare. It has also been an important player in the Global Greens movement, particularly in the Asia Pacific region. We will have to wait to see whether it fulfils its potential and makes its long-awaited breakthrough into the national parliament. Although Taiwan’s party system has had numerous small parties, it has long lacked an institutionalised alternative party. Taiwan’s democracy would be enriched by such an addition. Will this be the GPT or another of its competitors? Naturally, I hope they can make it and so allow me to come back and write a second edition ten years later.

286  Conclusion

Notes 1 Chiao Wei-kang (喬偉鋼), ‘Wang Hau-yu Announces He Is Leaving the GPT: I am Tired,’ Up Media, 12 January 2020, www.upmedia.mg/news_info.php?SerialNo=79394. 2 GPT, Facebook post, 23 January 2020. 3 Rita Jhang, 18 July 2020. 4 Taiwan News, 13 January 2020. 5 Wang Hau-yu, Facebook post, 15 June 2020. 6 Rita Jhang, 18 July 2020. 7 Ibid. 8 GPT, Facebook post, 20 July 2020. 9 GPT, Facebook post, 22 July 2020. 10 UDN Evening News, 19 June 2020, B1 Central Taiwan. 11 Rita Jhang, 18 July 2020. 12 Jake Chung, ‘Ministry Drops Delinquent Political Parties from List,’ Taipei Times, 30 April 2020, 3. 13 My return email to Yu Wan-ju, 10 October 2012. 14 Rita Jhang, 18 July 2020.

References Achen, Christopher and T.Y. Wang (eds.). 2017. The Taiwan Voter. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Harmel, Robert and Kenneth Janda. 1994. ‘An Integrated Theory of Party Goals and Party Change.’ Journal of Theoretical Politics, 6(3): 259–287. Meguid, Bonnie. 2008. Party Competition between Unequals: Strategies and Electoral Fortunes in Western Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spoon, Jae-Jae. 2011. Political Survival of Small Parties in Europe. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Appendix 1 GPT figures interviewed

Name

GPT/Trees Party roles

Dates interviewed

Linda Arrigo

International Affairs Officer 1997–; CEC 2005–6, CRC 2007–8 Founding Campaign Manager, C 1998; CEC 2005–7 CEC 2017–21; C 2018, 2020

February 12, 2013 (email)

C 2006, 2008, 2010; CEC 2007–8; Co-Convenor 2008–10 GPT SDP C 2016, CRC 2017–18 C 2012; CEC 2013–17, Co-Convenor 2015–16, CRC 2017–19; CEC 2019–20 Long-term party supporter and office manager in 1990s CRC 2005–7; C 2008; Co-Convenor 2007–8, CRC 2008–9 GPT SDP C 2016; SDP leader SBP leader CEC 2012–13; Trees Party C 2016 CEC 2006–7; CRC 2008–9, CEC 2012–17 Campaigner 2011–12 Campaigner (2008, 2014–16) C and County Councillor 2014–17 Founder of the Third Society Party

December 20, 2012 (FG)

Chang Chi-huang (張琦凰) Chang Chih-wei (張志偉) Chang Hung-lin (張宏林) Chang Li-fen (張麗芬) Chang Yu-ching (張育憬)

Chen Jui-pin (陳瑞賓) Chen Man-li (陳曼麗) Chen Shang-chih (陳尚志) Chen Yi-chi (陳奕齊) Chiu Hsin-hui (邱馨慧) Chiu Hua-mei (邱花妹) Chiu Ya-wen (邱雅文) Chiu Yu-bin (邱毓斌) Chou Chiang-chieh (周江杰) Chou Yi-cheng (周奕成).

December 20, 2012 (FG) September 17, 2018

April 5, 2020 (Facebook messages) December 27, 2014

December 20, 2012 (FG) December 17, 2012 January 3, 2017 January 2, 2015 December 17, 2012 (FG) January 4, 2014; January 2, 2017 December 20, 2012 January 2, 2017 April 4, 2017 January 19, 2016 (Continued)

288 Appendix 1 GPT figures interviewed (Continued) Name

GPT/Trees Party roles

Dates interviewed

Fan Yun (范雲)

GPT SDP C 2016, SDP leader C 2014 CEC 2005–6; Co-Convenor 2006–7 CRC 2010–11; CEC 2012–13

January 5, 2017

Fu Ching-fan (傅靜凡) Jolan Hsieh (謝若蘭) Hsu Chan-chuan (徐蟬娟) Victoria Hsu (許秀雯) Hsu Wen-yen (徐文彥) Hsiao Yuan (蕭遠) Huang Mei-ying (黃美英) Huang Shu-wei (黃書緯) Hung Yu-cheng (洪裕程) Iah Tsun-hong (易俊宏) Jia Bo-kai (賈伯楷)

GPT SDP C 2016 CEC 2005–6; 2010–11; CRC 2006–7, 2011–12; C 2008 Campaigner 2011–12 C 1996 Blogger supporting GPT 2006 Founding Secretary General; CEC 2005–6 C 2018, Spokesperson 2017– 18, CEC 2017–20

Lo Yue-feng (羅岳峰)

GPT SDP C 2016, C 2018, Spokesperson 2017–18, CEC 2017–19 C 2020, CEC 2019–21 Founding Convenor 1996–8, 2003–5; CEC 2005–6; CRC 2007–10; C 1996, 1998, 2001, 2020 CEC 2001–?; CEC 2007–8; CRC 2008–9 CEC 2006–7, Co-Convenor 2013–16; CEC 2017; GPT SDP C 2016 Founding member; CEC 2006–7, 2013–15, CRC 2015–17 C 2018; Co-Convenor 2019–21 C 2014, 2018

Jennifer Lu (呂欣潔)

GPT SDP C 2016

Pan Han-chiang (潘翰疆)

CEC 2005–6, 2007–8; Trees Party C 2014, 2018; Trees Party leader Campaigner 1996; CEC 2006–7, 2011–13; Co-Convenor 2010–11; C 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012; Trees Party C 2014, 2016, Trees Party leader

Rita Jhang (張竹芩) Kao Cheng-yan (高成炎)

Lai Fen-lan (賴芬蘭) Lee Ken-cheng (李根政) Lin Cheng-hsiu (林正修) Liu Chung-hsien (劉崇顯)

Pan Han-sheng (潘翰聲)

August 19, 2014 February 8, 2019 December 17, 2012 (FG); December 20, 2012 (FG) June 9, 2016 December 17, 2012 (FG) December 17, 2012 August 5, 2020 (Facebook messages) December 20, 2012 (FG) November 14, 2019 April 4, 2017; April 6, 2017; September 17, 2018 April 4, 2017 July 18, 2020 December 20, 2012 (FG); December 26, 2014 December 17, 2012 (FG) January 4, 2015 December 20, 2012 (FG); September 14, 2018 September 17, 2018 June 2020 (Facebook messages) February 8, 2018 December 19, 2014 December 17, 2012 (FG); December 19, 2014

Appendix 1 GPT figures interviewed 289 Name

GPT/Trees Party roles

Dates interviewed

Peng Yen-wen (彭渰雯)

Campaigner 1996; C 1998; Convenor 2005–6; C 2008; CRC 2009–11, 2013–15

Sheng I-che (冼義哲)

Member until 2014; Trees Party C 2016, 2018. C 2012 Blogger supporting GPT 2006; C 2010, 2014, CEC 2010–12, Spokesperson 2013 C 2008, Raging Citizens leader C 2014, 2018, 2020; City Councillor 2014–20, Co-Convenor 2017–18, CEC 2017–20 C 2018, Co-Convenor 2017– 18, CEC 2017–18

December 20, 2012; January 2, 2014; January 14, 2016; September 15, 2018. April 4, 2017; September 12, 2018 December 17, 2012 (FG) September 14, 2018

Tsai Chi-hao (蔡智豪) Wang Chung-ming (王鐘銘)

Wang Fang-ping (王芳萍) Wang Hau-yu (王浩宇)

Wang Yen-han (王彥涵) Calvin Wen (溫炳原)

Robin Winkler

Yang Chang-ling (楊長苓) Yang Jhih-da (楊智達) Yu Wan-ju (余宛如)

Campaigner 1996; Campaign manager 1998; CEC 2007– 8, C 2008, 2009; CEC 2012–13 CEC 2006–7, CRC 2007–8, CEC 2008–11; Co-Convenor 2011–12; CRC 2013–15 CEC 2010–11, 2019–20; Co-Convenor 2011–12, CRC 2015–17 GPT SDP C 2016 Co-Convenor 2012–15; C 2012

January 4, 2015 Multiple Facebook messages 2019–2020 April 4, 2017; April 6, 2017; September 17, 2018 January 2, 2014

July 27, 2013; January 8, 2016 December 20, 2012 November 5, 2019 December 17, 2012 (FG); December 20, 2012; August 18, 2013; January 3, 2017

Note: Some dates are estimates. Abbreviation: CEC: Central Executive Committee, CRC Central Review Committee, C: Candidate; FG: Focus group. Source: GPT website

Index

Aduan 168, 172, 175 advertisements 19, 25, 125, 129, 134, 154, 165, 169, 193, 197, 204, 214 – 216, 218, 220 – 221, 223, 241, 250, 260, 269 animal rights 30, 106, 157, 284 Arrigo, Linda 36, 42, 54, 89, 91, 108, 127, 134, 142, 145 Arthur Yo (游藝) 159, 247 Asia Pacific Greens 6, 16, 24, 54, 59, 60, 62, 64, 70 – 71, 94 – 95, 136, 143, 168, 214 Ayo Cheng (鄭先祐) 81, 137 Calvin Wen (溫炳原) 14, 60, 63, 86, 88, 92, 117, 120, 125, 128, 137 – 138, 143, 158, 160, 166, 284 campaign strategy 144, 198, 201, 203, 205, 217, 252, 256, 261 Central Election Commission (CEC) 16, 23 – 24, 47 – 49, 51 – 52, 57, 61, 63, 65 – 70, 73, 76 – 77, 79, 82, 102, 155, 172, 258 Central Executive Committee 23, 25, 37 – 40, 74, 77, 82, 92 – 93, 95 – 97, 105, 114, 129, 131, 139, 142, 156, 167, 173, 178, 189 – 190, 195, 198, 212, 225 – 227, 238 – 239, 243 – 244, 254, 277, 279, 289 Central Review Committee 24, 33, 88, 95, 108, 220, 244, 256, 289 Chang Chi-huang (張琦凰) 35 – 36, 42, 54, 64, 78, 89, 91, 117, 122 – 123, 129, 131, 134, 137, 150 Chang Chih-wei (張志偉) 87, 244 Chang Hung-lin (張宏林) 60, 64, 70, 81, 136, 142, 144 – 145, 149, 150 – 153, 162, 166 – 167, 183, 197 Chang Kuo-long (張國龍) 35 Chang Li-fen (張麗芬) 87, 222, 239, 244 Chang Ming-li (張明麗) 199, 200, 206 Chang Yi-shan (張益贍) 36, 263

Chang Yu-ching (張育憬) 38 – 39, 42, 74, 82, 176, 178 – 179, 184, 195, 197 – 198, 200, 205 – 206, 210, 212, 230 – 231, 233, 237, 239, 256 Chan Shun-gui (詹順貴) 238 Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) 240, 243 – 244, 248 – 249, 253, 262, 264, 278 Chen Jui-pin (陳瑞賓) 89, 108, 138, 145, 150 – 151, 162 Chen Kuang-yu (陳光宇) 81, 131, 137 Chen Man-li (陳曼麗) 81, 101, 155 – 156, 163, 220 Chen Shang-chih (陳尚志) 208 – 209, 225, 230, 238 Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) 35, 94, 123, 127, 139, 155, 160, 198 Chen Yu-feng (陳玉峰) 32, 97, 155 China 6, 9, 26 – 29, 32, 60, 62, 71, 104, 107, 110, 115, 122 – 123, 128, 145 – 146, 163, 214 – 215, 227 – 228, 233, 255, 161 – 162, 266, 269 – 271, 279, 285; see also People’s Republic of China (PRC) Chi Shu-ying (齊淑英) 59, 87, 140 Chiu Hua-mei (邱花妹) 97, 142, 190 – 191, 211 – 212, 222, 224, 227 – 228, 230, 238 Chiu Yu-bin (邱毓斌) 154, 212, 222, 265, 267 – 270 Chou Chiang-chieh (周江杰) 68, 71, 76, 98, 195, 199, 215, 239, 251, 272 Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜) 227 – 228, 270 Chou Yi-cheng (周奕成) 156 Chungli 98, 194 – 195 Chung Pao-chu (鍾寶珠) 55, 61, 86, 94, 140, 158 civil society 6 – 7, 29, 34, 97, 110, 128, 131, 139, 144, 150, 155, 174, 177, 192, 194, 219, 220, 233, 245, 263, 281 – 282 Cole, J Michael 6 Cross-Strait 29, 54, 97, 110, 117 – 118, 193, 261

Index  291 democracy 13, 17, 19, 27, 29, 31, 39, 43, 92, 109, 123 – 124, 134, 185, 195, 209, 215, 218, 230, 233, 255, 262, 285 electoral system 14, 20 – 21, 40, 49, 50, 61, 63, 139, 154 – 155, 158 – 159, 193, 210, 213 environmental movement 11, 13, 27, 30, 33 – 36, 43, 85, 97, 117, 123, 127 – 129, 134, 138, 142 – 143, 151, 167, 174, 198 – 199, 219, 268; anti-nuclear movement 7, 88, 90, 114, 128, 130, 219; environmentalism 34 – 35, 43, 209, 268, 271; environmentalist 33, 36, 41, 80 – 82, 86, 89, 95, 97, 117, 128, 138, 140, 144, 179, 247, 269 Fan Yun (范雲) 74, 208 – 209, 213, 216, 218, 220 – 221, 225 – 227, 231 – 233, 238, 247, 254, 257, 261, 264, 267 feminist movement 86, 166, 218, 265 Fengyenfengyu (峰言峰語) 270, 273 Fourth Nuclear Power Station 29, 35 – 36, 88, 114, 117, 120, 125, 137, 139, 143, 174, 193 Freddy Lim (林昶佐) 194, 228 Fu Ching-fan (傅靜凡) 69, 75, 99, 101, 193 – 194, 197, 205, 252 Global Greens 6, 16 – 18, 23 – 24, 26, 59, 60, 62, 64, 70 – 71, 74, 94, 99, 154, 171, 189, 190, 212 – 213, 232 – 233, 239 – 240, 285 Grano, Simona 11, 95, 233 Green Party Taiwan (GPT) 3, 10, 15, 27, 29, 33, 43, 64, 80, 110, 122, 125, 136, 144, 162 – 163, 233 Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) 35, 89, 98, 261 – 262, 265 Harmel and Janda 4, 20, 278, 280 Ho, Ming-sho (何明修) 9, 27, 43, 79, 123, 134, 146, 163, 185, 233 Ho Ying-yi (何穎怡) 86, 92, 114, 119, 121 Hsiao Yuan (蕭遠) 172 – 173, 177, 181, 184 – 185 Hsinchu 65, 67 – 69, 73, 75 – 77, 81, 87, 100 – 101, 103 – 104, 171, 191, 195, 197, 203, 215, 239, 241 – 245, 247 – 52, 279 Hsu Bo-jen (許博任) 224, 227 Hsu Chu-feng (許主峰) 130 Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良) 127 – 128 Hsu Hsin-ying (徐欣瑩) 243, 251 Hsu Wen-yen (徐文彥) 96, 157, 177

Hualien 55, 59, 61, 90, 94 – 95, 104, 140, 142 – 143, 158, 161 Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) 219, 279 Huang Mei-ying (黃美英) 119 – 120 Huang Shu-wei (黃書緯) 150, 152 Huang Yung-mei (黃詠梅) 167, 176, 178 Hung Yu-cheng (洪裕程) 36, 88 – 90, 115, 118, 139 – 140, 263, 268 – 271 Iah Tsun-hong (易俊宏) 76, 87, 240, 245, 247 indigenous 23, 50, 65, 83, 85, 114, 119, 120, 127, 176 internet campaigning 141, 154, 172, 176 – 177, 194, 197 – 198, 217, 220, 241, 283; social media 23 – 25, 172, 177, 193, 197, 199, 202, 221, 224, 241, 252, 268, 285 Japan 6, 49, 55, 60, 70, 85, 223, 256 Jay Fang (方儉) 31, 37, 179, 259 Jennifer Lu (呂欣潔) 216, 221 Jia Bo-kai (賈伯楷) 87, 199, 239, 246 Jolan Hsieh (謝若蘭) 97, 140, 142 – 143, 145, 152, 162, 259 Kao Cheng-yan (高成炎) 33, 40, 53 – 54, 59, 80 – 81, 85, 87 – 89, 91, 114, 117, 121, 124, 128, 129, 136, 159, 177, 193, 243, 256, 259, 261, 266, 268 – 269 Kao Chin-lang (高金郎) 86, 101, 114, 129 Kaohsiung 23, 38, 67 – 68, 91, 93 – 94, 102 – 104, 107, 149, 178, 191, 198 – 199, 214 – 215, 217, 221 – 222, 247, 262, 284 Kao Meng-ting (高孟定) 52 – 53, 91, 116, 119, 121 – 122, 129 Kawlo Iyun Pacidal (高潞．以用．巴魕 剌) 3, 220, 222, 263 Keli Yen (顏克莉) 64, 71 Korea 6, 35, 55, 70, 227, 256 Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) 50, 217, 238, 243, 246, 253, 262 – 263, 279, 281 Kuomintang (KMT) 3 Labor Party 171, 262 labour 61, 86 – 87, 98, 107, 118, 153 – 154, 189 – 190, 209, 213, 215 – 216, 222, 227, 239 – 240, 244, 249, 271 labour movement 118, 240, 244; trade unions 209, 248 Lee Ken-cheng (李根政) 8, 37 – 40, 51, 67 – 68, 71, 74, 81, 85, 87, 89, 94 – 95, 97, 100, 142, 189 – 190, 193 – 195, 197, 208, 212 – 213, 215, 217, 222, 226, 228,

292 Index 230, 237, 239, 243 – 244, 246 – 247, 270, 278 Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) 114 – 116, 118, 127, 140, 156 Lee Yen-jong (李晏榕) 214, 225 Lee Yi-chieh (李宜潔) 159, 196 Legislative Yuan 3, 11, 32 – 33, 35, 49, 51, 59, 62, 75, 86, 116, 124, 153, 155, 263 LGBT rights 3, 21, 86 – 87, 96, 99, 107, 166, 169 – 171, 194, 215, 217, 219, 221, 223, 243, 271, 285 Liang Yi-chi (梁益誌) 68, 237, 239, 247 Lin Chang-hsing (林長興) 63, 69, 99 Lin Chang-mao (林長茂) 101, 129 Lin Cheng-hsiu (林正修) 130, 138, 142, 197, 211 – 212, 223, 244, 256 Lin Chia-yu (林佳諭) 70, 204, 229 Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) 194 Lin Jih-wen (林繼文) 155 Lin Sheng-hsiang (林生祥) 150, 194 Lin Sheng-Jr (林聖智) 15, 105 Lin Show-tsai (林謙勇) 25, 202, 264 Lin Tzu-ling 120 Lin Yen-ling (林艷玲) 55, 86, 92, 120; see also Lin Tzu-ling Lin Yi-hsiung (林義雄) 208 – 209, 212 Liu Chung-hsien (劉崇顯) 76, 100, 248, 250, 256 – 257 Li Ying-hsuan (李盈萱) 64, 166 Lo Wen-chia (羅文嘉) 160 Lo Yue-feng (羅岳峰) 68, 75, 87, 242, 245, 249, 277 Lucardie, Paul 12, 21, 41, 219 Ma, Ying-jeou (馬英九) 62, 100, 125, 128, 132, 198, 212 Meguid, Bonnie 6, 12, 20 – 22, 35, 117 – 118, 139, 203, 280 Miao Po-ya (苗博雅) 75, 85, 194, 247, 257 Ministry of Interior 11, 16, 32 – 33, 37 – 38, 40, 54, 208, 258, 279 Minkuotang (MKT) 220, 243, 251 – 253, 258, 279, 281 Nachman, Lev. 14 – 15, 30, 208 – 209 National Assembly 6, 8, 29, 31, 33 – 34, 36 – 37, 47, 49, 51 – 52, 55 – 56, 59, 86, 89, 91, 94, 101, 113 – 114, 116 – 117, 124, 142 national identity 5, 32, 96, 107, 115, 122, 128, 198, 219, 285; see also Taiwan identity nationalism 16, 115, 285 New Nation Alliance (NNA) 11, 128 – 131, 137, 279

New Party (NP) 3 – 5, 13, 17, 20, 36, 50, 55, 63, 72, 114, 116, 127 – 128, 136, 155, 180, 182, 215, 258 New Power Party (NPP) 3, 14 – 15, 30, 51, 71 – 72, 74, 101, 105 – 106, 197, 202, 208, 210 – 211, 213, 218 – 221, 224 – 225, 228, 230, 241, 245 – 247, 249 – 250, 253, 257, 263 – 266, 280 – 281, 284 niche parties 4, 12, 17, 22, 280 nomination 3, 8, 15 – 16, 20, 22, 33, 38, 53, 59, 67, 70 – 71, 75, 84 – 86, 101, 121, 127, 134, 136, 152, 160 – 161, 167 – 168, 175 – 176, 191 – 193, 196 – 197, 219 – 220, 222, 224, 229 – 230, 246, 261, 269 Pan Blue 50, 174 Pan Greens 50 Pan Han-chiang (潘翰疆) 38, 75, 203, 240 Pan Han-sheng (潘翰聲) 3, 37 – 38, 40, 51, 60, 62, 64, 74, 85 – 87, 93, 98 – 99, 101, 144, 149, 154 – 155, 159 – 161, 172, 174, 178, 180, 182 – 183, 189 – 190, 192, 203, 210, 226, 261, 278, 283 Parliament 3 – 4, 14, 21, 29, 34, 47, 49, 74, 90, 96, 99, 171, 221, 230; see also Legislative Yuan party system 4, 6 – 7, 11, 15, 20, 29, 47, 50 – 51, 71, 116, 122, 127, 129 – 130, 133, 136 – 137, 140 – 141, 144, 150 – 151, 155 – 156, 168, 173 – 174, 196, 204, 218, 228, 230, 245 – 246, 253, 263 – 264, 270, 280, 285 Penghu 38, 63, 67, 69, 75, 99 – 100, 194, 197 – 198, 204, 252 – 253 Peng Yen-wen (彭渰雯) 5 – 6, 14 – 15, 24, 56, 60 – 61, 75, 80, 85 – 86, 92, 96, 120, 124, 131, 142, 154, 158 – 159, 189, 240, 243, 259, 269, 284 People First Party (PFP) 12, 50, 72, 74, 105, 137, 151, 168, 174, 225, 262 People’s Democratic Front 196, 200 People’s Republic of China (PRC) 6, 29, 32, 60, 62, 71, 104, 107, 115, 122, 128, 150, 181, 214 – 215, 222, 227 – 228, 261 – 262, 266, 269 – 271, 279, 285; see also China political parties 4, 7, 10, 18, 35, 107, 157, 209, 213, 230, 257, 279, 282 public opinion polls 137 Raging Citizens Action Now 61, 86, 153 – 154, 156, 158, 169, 200, 207, 216 Referendums 243, 245 Republic of China (ROC) 71, 95, 214, 227, 262

Index  293 Rigger, Shelley 18, 127, 173, 214, 242 Rita Jhang (張竹芩) 256, 259, 261 – 262, 266, 268 – 270, 277 – 278, 282 Sanmin 198, 247 School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) 5, 96, 99, 252 sexual nightclubs 132 Sheng I-che (冼義哲) 38, 70, 74 – 75, 99, 107, 194, 198, 252, 268 Shih Hsin-min (施信民) 114, 137 Sinan Mavivo (希婻．瑪飛洑) 65, 172, 176, 190 small parties 5, 7, 10 – 12, 14 – 15, 17, 20 – 22, 50, 61, 85, 118, 124, 129, 155, 159 – 161, 170, 196, 202, 209, 216, 229, 245, 257, 262 – 263, 265, 281, 285; see also niche parties Social Democratic Party (SDP) 3, 14 – 15, 30, 71 – 75, 87, 96, 103, 107, 156, 197, 202, 207 – 209, 211 – 213, 215, 217, 219 – 221, 223, 225, 227, 229, 231, 238, 245, 247 – 248, 256 – 257, 266 – 267, 271, 281 social media 23 – 25, 172, 177, 193, 197, 199, 202, 221, 224, 241, 252, 268, 283 social movements 3, 6 – 7, 11, 13, 18, 23, 25, 29, 33 – 34, 36, 80, 85, 103, 107, 117 – 118, 122, 127, 138 – 139, 151 – 152, 160 – 161, 196, 204, 220, 243, 248, 259, 268, 278, 281 – 282 Song Chia-lun (宋佳倫) 86, 165 – 167, 170, 178, 189, 214 Song Hung-kuang (宋竑廣) 14 Soong Chu-yu (宋楚瑜) 225 Spoon, Jae-Jae 6, 12, 22, 158, 280 State Building Party (SBP) 106, 257, 260, 263 – 268, 284; see also Taiwan Radical Wings Sunflower Movement 6, 29, 39, 97, 100, 194, 196, 201 – 202, 207 – 209, 224 surveys 5 – 6, 18 – 19, 23 – 24, 72, 103 – 105, 125, 137, 260 – 261, 264, 266; see also public opinion polls Taipei Times 25, 30, 37, 57, 59 – 60, 62, 64, 72, 94, 139, 154, 159, 166, 171, 195, 214 Taiwan Environmental Protection Union (TEPU) 31, 34, 36, 88 – 90, 92, 120, 266; see also environmental movement Taiwan identity 5, 96, 115, 285 Taiwan independence 128, 219, 227, 266, 269, 271

Taiwan Independence Party (TIP) 11, 101, 128 – 131, 137, 263, 266, 279 Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) 50, 94, 262 – 265, 279, 281 Taiwan Radical Wings 71, 245 – 246 Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) 13, 50, 61, 65, 71 – 72, 101, 137, 140, 144, 151, 155 – 156, 168, 174, 196 – 197 198, 219 – 220, 228, 258 – 260, 263, 265 Tamsui (淡水) 13, 65, 95 – 96, 165, 170, 201, 283 Taoyuan 7, 9, 67 – 68, 73, 75 – 77, 81, 87, 102 – 104, 118, 171, 191, 195, 197, 239 – 245, 248 – 250, 252, 261 – 262, 264, 269, 278 Teng Hui-wen (鄧惠文) 256, 259 – 260, 262, 269, 271, 279 trade unions 118, 209, 240, 244, 248; see also labour movement Trees Party 6, 8 – 10, 14, 23, 26, 29 – 30, 37 – 41, 47, 57, 67, 69 – 71, 73 – 76, 87, 93 – 95, 98, 100 – 101, 159, 178, 189, 194, 196 – 197, 203 – 204, 210 – 211, 213 – 214, 218, 224, 227 – 229, 237, 239, 245, 251 – 252, 257 – 258, 265, 268, 279, 283 Tsai Chi-hao (蔡智豪) 176 – 178, 190 Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) 144, 160, 168, 172, 178, 180 – 181, 218 – 219, 221, 226 – 227, 261, 278 Tseng Po-yu (曾柏瑜) 73, 101, 194, 224, 231, 238, 246 Tsui Shu-hsin (崔愫欣) 25, 197, 212 United Daily News (UDN) 25, 30, 37, 57, 59 – 60, 72, 87, 93, 98, 115, 119, 150, 181, 195, 219, 237 United States (US) 54, 60, 62, 88 – 89, 92 – 94, 98, 127, 131, 141 – 143, 160, 201, 259 Van Haute, Emilie 15 – 17, 28, 31, 43, 110 Victoria Hsu (許秀雯) 215, 220, 223 – 224 voting behaviour 15, 251, 285 Wang Chung-ming (王鐘銘) 14, 25, 64 – 65, 69 – 70, 85, 94, 95 – 96, 150, 152, 165 – 172, 176, 179, 192, 195, 201, 205, 252, 264, 283 – 284 Wang Fang-ping (王芳萍) 156 Wang Hau-yu (王浩宇) 7, 9, 25, 51, 68, 74 – 75, 77, 87, 93, 98, 100 – 101, 118, 194 – 195, 199, 202, 212, 237, 239 – 241, 244, 247, 249 – 250, 256 – 257, 259 – 260, 264, 269 – 271, 277 – 278, 283 – 284 Wang Hsing-chih (王醒之) 158, 200

294 Index

Xi Jinping 215, 219

Yang Jhih-da (楊智達) 107, 216 – 217, 246 Yang Mu-wan (楊木萬) 66, 101, 179, 196 Yao Li-ming (姚立明) 63, 215 Youth Occupy Politics 38, 100, 203, 229, 258 Yu Hsiao-ching (余筱菁) 76, 100, 251, 256 – 257, 279 Yunlin 52, 86, 90 – 91, 95, 121, 129 Yu Wan-ju (余宛如) 5, 40, 96, 101, 157, 167, 171, 173, 189 – 190, 192, 211 – 212, 220, 230

Yang Chang-ling (楊長苓) 169, 172, 176, 256 Yang Chi-hsiang (楊志翔) 69, 87, 250

Zhudong (竹東) 195, 199, 251 Zoe Lee (李 菁 琪) 259, 261

Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋) 120, 220 Wang Yen-han (王彥涵) 64, 87, 100, 239, 243 – 244, 248, 250 – 251, 267, 269 – 270 Wild Lily 64, 85, 90, 104, 222 Winkler, Robin 38 – 40, 62 – 64, 71, 94 – 95, 97, 138, 142 – 144, 160 – 161, 165, 167 – 169, 173, 175 – 176, 177 – 178, 210 – 212, 224 – 225, 230 – 231, 247, 278, 283 Wu Jieh-min (吳介民) 207, 218 Wu Min-hsuan (吳銘軒) 40, 180, 222