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Heart of Tower 101, symbol of Taiwan, the futuristic anti-seismic gear seems like an eternal reminder to achieve balance. Yet the island, which proclaimed itself the Republic of China in the 1950s while Beijing considers it a province rebelling against its sovereignty to be brought back into the fold, goes to the polls in such an incandescent climate that it shifts the pendulum of the country away from stability, dragging the entire Asia-Pacific area.
Three formations are in the field for the conquest of the presidency and Parliament, the Legislative Yuan with 113 seats, in an unusual structure capable of shattering that principle of parliamentary majority dear to the Taiwanese political tradition.
The candidates in the running
For the independence party DPP, William Lai Ching, on the ticket with Hsiao Bi-kim, another determined woman, aims to take over from the outgoing president Tsai ing-wen, is leading the polls for winning a third mandate this time in benefit of the maximalist wing well rooted in “its” Southern constituencies, refractory to the sirens of the People’s Republic of China, from which, in the event of victory, it will draw to form the new government.
The main competitor, candidate of the nationalist Kuomintang party, is Hou Yu-Ih, a former policeman without the typical pedigree of that military aristocracy who, having lost the civil war, took refuge on the island of Formosa, the beautiful one, as the discoverers called it Portuguese, bringing with them the treasures of the Forbidden City, in such quantities that they also had to be stowed in the basement of the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
Taiwan goes to vote, here’s who the main candidates are
His victory was unlikely, despite the fact that the Kuomintang is a party rich in resources and, certainly, more aligned with that 1992 Consensus which in the past guaranteed more balanced relations with Beijing, but was blatantly omitted by Tsai Ing-wen in her inauguration speech. on May 20, 2016.