Legislative election '07 update

A few bits of news have been starting to leak out about how the Legislative '07 contest will really shape up.

As you probably know, Taiwan will be switching to a "single-member district, two vote" system where they will cast one vote for a local representative and one vote for a party. Out of the 113 seats in the new system, 73 will be directly elected, 6 are reserved for Aborigines and the remaining 34 will be distributed to parties based on that second vote.

As I've laid out before, There are 9 districts that will be almost certainly be highly competitive and a handful of others I see as "leaning" but could do a lot of things. Here's the latest news about those districts.

Miaoli Dist. 1 苗栗第一選區

Two local KMT heavyweights -- Miaoli Farmer's Association Chief Officer 苗栗縣農會總幹事 Li Yi-ting (李乙廷) and current Nanzhu Township Warden 南竹鎮長 Kang Shi-ru (康世儒) both expressed interest in running in this critical district. Given the need to keep the KMT cohesive and avoid any conflict in the party, they met up together at a local temple (八間廟宇) and came to an agreement after meeting local leaders and asking the gods who would be the better candidate. After asking the gods 8 times by pua̍h-pue (擲筊) or casting the devination apple halves, Li Yi-ting came out on top with a 6-2 result. Thanks for the political advice, gods!

Pingtung Dist. 2 屏東第二選區

Former Pingtung City mayor Wang Jin-shih (王進士 )has expressed his interest in running in Pingtung's second district (which includes Pingtung City). His announcement means he will have to go head to head with current KMT legislator Liao Wan-Ju (廖婉汝), who actually made the district plan for Pingtung with Nonpartisan Solidarity Union member Cai Hao (蔡豪), and Liao obviously tried to make herself a district sh ecould win in. Both will contend for a nomination.

The DPP is quite worried about either of these people, but probably more worried about the mayor. One current legislator, Cheng Tsao-Min (鄭朝明) has insisted he wants to run in Dist. 1 (which is a bit safer). And current Dist. 2 legislator Lin Yu-sheng (林育生) has not decided and will not say if he wants to run in the district.

At large seats 不分區

The KMT legislative caucus hopes that the party can quickly solve the problem of how to nominate their at large legislators. now that the Wang-Ma meeting has calmed down fears of a split in teh party, theyr'e asking people to solve this problem quickly.

The DPP will be holding a meeting on Feb. 27 to discuss their own nomination process among other problems.