On 13 January 2024, the Taiwan general election was concluded that Lai, the candidate of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), was elected as the next leader of Taiwan by winning around 40% of the popular votes.

While attaching significance to the 2024 general election result, it is also in need of seeing the trend of the Taiwan election in order to understand better of the main concerns of the Taiwan society toward the Taiwan local election, as well as of the evolving position of the Taiwan public toward the major political parties.

This short piece mainly tends to briefly comment on the results of the most recent three elections in Taiwan happened in 2016, 2020, and 2024 respectively.

Table 1: Favourable Rating of Major Political Parties in the Recent Three Elections of Taiwan

*DPP: The Democratic Progressive Party

*KMT: The Nationalist Party/Kuomintang

*PP: The People’s Party

Table 2: Election Results in the Legislative Branch in Taiwan’s Recent Three Elections

From Table 1, we can see that the public approval rating to the DPP in the 2016 and 2020 elections was roughly at the same level, and then down to around 40% in the 2024 election, a 17 percentage point drop in contrast to the previous level. Table 2 shows that there had been a declining trend in the elections of the legislative branch for the DPP over the past three elections from winning 68 seats (the total number of seats is 113) in 2016 to securing 51 seats in 2024. The DPP had managed to keep a majority in the legislature in the 2016 and 2020 elections. Yet, with the just concluded 2024 election, the party had lost that advantage.

For the Kuomintang (KMT), Table 1 can tell that, in the recent three elections, the KMT had attempted to obtain a relatively stable approval rating of roughly between 31% and less than 40%; meanwhile from Table 2, for the election results in the legislative branch, the party had made a big progress from 35 seats in 2016 to 38 in 2020 and further to 52 in 2024, yet it still needs at least 5 more seats in order to win a majority in the legislature.

From a relative perspective, the real big winner in Taiwan’s 2024 election was the People’s Party (PP), as it is assumed that the PP’s performance might have been beyond the expectations of the general public by getting 26% of the total popular votes and 8 seats in the legislative body.

Besides the gains and losses, the trend of the recent three elections of Taiwan also reflected that the major political parties in the years ahead will face different challenges.

For the DPP, the election results show that the DPP’s influence in the Taiwan society and in the legislative branch, especially over the past 4 years, has suffered a big drop, which cannot be irrelevant from the range of policies and measures adopted by the DPP in recent years. In the coming years, whether the DPP would sustain the current policies or adjust them would decide how long the party would continue to stay in power.

In relation to the KMT, apparently, it has kept a certain portion of loyalists to the party, and the KMT over the past three elections had mostly depended on them to secure a relatively stable approval rating. Nonetheless, KMT hadn’t managed to make much progress in getting new voters, as from the 2024 election results, we can see that the 17 percentage point loss of the DPP, instead of going to the KMT (the KMT even had lost a small percentage of rating as well), had actually gone to the PP’s favour, and enabled the PP to finally get a 26% rating. In the coming election, there will be a big chance for the KMT to come back to power, yet, the challenge will be large as well. The KMT needs a strong leadership to keep the party more united and to more effectively implement the agenda set by the party. Besides that, there is also a need for the party to think about how to attract fresh voters.

As for the PP, it managed to make a surprising gain in the 2024 election, which led the PP to assume a privilege to possibly influence the agendas of both the DPP and the KMT. Meanwhile, It needs to be aware that, in comparison to the KMT and the DPP, the PP is relatively new (it was established in 2019), so that it would likely take some time for the PP to get a certain proportion of stable supporters. Even though the PP had attracted numerous voters in the 2024 election, a large number of them were assumed to be swing supporters and could easily switch their positions in the future. Apparently, these groups of voters especially the younger generations expect the PP to make something different from what the DPP had adopted and delivered over the past years.

For the time being, the PP doesn’t have a clear policy position toward the mainland China, yet in contrast to the DPP, the PP advocates a more reconcilable and workable approach in managing the Cross-Strait relations, as the party leader of the PP viewed: “the Mainland and Taiwan are better being one family than being enemies”. In this regard, the KMT and the PP could share a lot more in common in the future in relation to the Cross-Strait relations.

After all, with the PP gaining some influence in Taiwan politics, there will be more possibilities in the coming years regarding how Taiwan politics will be further evolving, and meanwhile how it could have an impact on the Cross-Strait relations.