Amidst a host of elections around the world in 2024, the island of Taiwan is all geared up for its own presidential election and for members of its parliament, the legislative yuan. As the popular vote takes place today, on 13 January, it has – Lai Ching-Te, the current Vice-President of Taiwan and the candidate for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Hou Yu-ih, incumbent mayor of New Taipei and candidate of the Kuomintang Party (KMT), and Ko Wen-Je, former mayor of Taipei and candidate of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) as contenders.
They respectively have joint tickets with vice-presidential candidates Hsiao Bi-Khim (Taiwanese representative to the US), Jaw Shaw-Kong (President of Broadcasting Corporation of China), and Cynthia Wu (current member of legislative yuan).
So far, domestic Taiwanese polls such as those released by My Formosa opinion polls (the latest being the 101st poll from 31 December 2023) and the TVBS poll center just a few days ago, show a lead for Lai Ching-Te’s presidential campaign, and Hou’s campaign is close behind. Another poll by Mirror News still shows Lai in the lead, but Ko and not Hou as trailing behind at number 2 (by about 0.10 percentage points).
However, the possibility that the DPP wins a majority in the legislative yuan seems bleak, considering that the DPP would need to win more than 56 out of 113 seats, and in the previous two elections, their majority had already reduced from 68 to 61 seats.