DPP's Tsai Elected Taiwan's First Female President in Landslide Win

As the leader and the presidential candidate of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Tsai Ing-wen won a landslide victory in Taiwan's presidential election on January 16th, as she received 6.9 million votes, about 56% of the total, while Eric Chu, the candidate of the incumbent ruling Kuomintang Party (KMT) only received 31% of the votes, and James Soong of the People First Party (PFP) with 12.8%.

This convincing victory not only made Tsai the first ever female president of the nation but also helped her party sweep back into power after eight years in opposition. In the parliamentary election which was held together on Saturday, the DPP Party also made history as they won an outstraight majority in the 113-seat parliament, for the first time ever.

The DPP, who only had 40 seats after the general election in 2012, took 68 seats this time, and its ally, the New Power Party (NPP), also took 5, leaving the KMT with just 35 seats. The rest went to the PFP, who had 3, and two other independents.

The KMT Party Secretary General Lee Shu-chuan said that the parliamentary results were "far below our expectations", and said the party would have to "reflect on the reasons that eventually led to the defeat."

Eric Chu, who was also the chairman of the KMT, admitted their defeat at around seven o'clock yesterday, less than three hours after the ballots started being counted. He apologized to his supporters, and claimed full responsibility for his party's failure---by announcing his intend to resign as chairman. Several senior officials also joined him, including Premier Mao Chi-kuo.

The downfall of the KMT Party can be traced to the two largest protests happened these years:

The first one happened in the summer of 2013 when Hung Chung-chiu, an army conscript, died under suspicious circumstances while serving a detention sentence, after he was found carrying a camera phone. Hung was forced to perform strenuous exercises, and reportedly, was refused by his superiors to give him water during a drill. He was hospitalized after suffering a headstroke and fell into coma---and eventually died of organ failure, at the age of 24.

Although President Ma Ying-jeou publicly apologised and promised justice,

over 100,000 protestors gathered outside the Presidential Office Building in Taipei, since they were not convinced by the sincerity of the investigation. Ma's approval rate also fell to 9.2%, a new historical record in Taiwanese history, later that year.

Hung's sister, Tzu-yung Hung also attended the parliamentary election this year. As a nominee of the NPP, she defeated the incumbent Kuomintang legislator Yang Chiung-ying, who had been a member of the parliament for more than two decades.

The other protest was the Sun Flower Movement in 2014, when students occupied the parliament for more than three weeks to protest the KMT legislators' attempt to speed-up parliamentary approval of the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement with mainland China.

Widespread demands of parliamentary reform and the insistence of the KMT led to their defeats in the 2014 mayoral elections, and eventually, their defeats this Saturday.

Throughout Tsai's campaign, she spoke to the concerns among the vast majority of Taiwanese people about mainland China's rising influence during these past eight years under Ma's rule. Her victory is widely deemed as a blow to the Chinese government, who has been seeking reunification with Taiwan for quite a long while.

“Our democratic system, national identity and international space must be fully respected,” Tsai said during her international news conference at her campaign headquarters last night.

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