Kaohsiung, Taiwan – On ‘Tremendous Sunday’ as Taiwan’s three main political events converged on the southern metropolis of Kaohsiung, 28-year-old Vivian and her nervous canine Kimmy stood collectively on the fringes of a rally for presidential candidate Ko Wen-je.
Ko was as soon as a mayor of Taipei, however he and his small Taiwan Folks’s Social gathering (TPP) has by no means held nationwide workplace.
That’s no concern for his supporters.
“I believe that though Ko is a brand-new selection, judging from his insurance policies and the controversy, you may perceive his logic,” Vivian advised Al Jazeera, standing in a spill-over part on the crowded rally on January 7. “It makes it simple for me to know what he desires to do.”
4 years in the past within the 2020 presidential election, Vivian, who didn’t need to share her full identify, says she voted for the incumbent Democratic Progressive Social gathering (DPP). So did many different younger individuals, who turned out of their droves and helped President Tsai Ing-wen win a second time period in a landslide.
However this time it’s totally different. Vivian desires a change from the same old two-party competitors between the DPP and Kuomintang (KMT), and that could possibly be a worrying signal for this yr’s DPP presidential candidate William Lai Ching-te.
Its enchantment to younger individuals – voters should be 20 or over in Taiwan – is the newest problem for a political social gathering that beforehand needed to take care of issues like martial regulation, the as soon as highly effective KMT, which headed Taiwan from the Nineteen Forties till the yr 2000, and several other years within the political wilderness following the 2008 arrest of its first president, Chen Shui-bian on corruption expenses.
The DPP’s fortunes had been revived by 2014’s Sunflower Motion, a pivotal scholar protest towards a controversial commerce deal that might have given Beijing extra leverage over Taiwan. When the DPP absorbed many Sunflower activists and coverage platforms, the social gathering earned itself lasting recognition with many Millennials and eight years within the presidential palace.
The social gathering additionally realized a factor or two about advertising from its younger supporters, rebranding technocrat Tsai into an “iron cat woman”, standing as much as China, which claims Taiwan as its personal territory, whereas flanked by her varied photogenic pets.
Now a decade later, Taiwan’s subsequent technology of Gen Z and youthful Millennial voters born within the late Nineties and early 2000s are rising as a political drive, they usually see the DPP not because the social gathering of outsiders who can carry change, however as a part of the institution.
The following technology steps up
Some DPP members also have a identify for this group of younger voters: the mingzhu fuerdai or “second technology democracy”. The time period is a play on fuerdai, a Mandarin Chinese language phrase for individuals who grew up with inherited wealth – typically the kids or grandchildren of a hardworking entrepreneur.
In Taiwan, mingzhu fuerdai grew up lengthy after the tip of martial regulation in 1987 or the 1990 White Lily scholar motion that led to the island’s first democratic elections. These voters, from the minimal age of 20 to 29, make up greater than 14 % of the citizens, in accordance with the Central Election Fee, with 2.8 million eligible voters out of the overall of 19.5 million.
They’re adopted by voters aged 30 to 39, who make up a barely bigger 16.5 %, born shortly earlier than Taiwan’s first democratic elections in 1996 or earlier, in accordance with authorities knowledge. Voters over 40 make up almost 70 % of the citizens.
“Youthful individuals don’t have expertise combating for democracy. The historical past of democracy in Taiwan is simply within the textbook; they study from it, however they don’t know the way individuals like our president and really many [others] fought for this,” 30-year-old DPP legislative candidate Huang Jie advised Al Jazeera from her marketing campaign workplace in Kaohsiung.
Huang puzzled whether or not this slight feeling of apathy may additionally be an indication of the success of Taiwan’s democracy; that individuals now not should combat for his or her political and civic freedoms. “Possibly it’s a very good factor for the youthful technology as a result of they will take pleasure in freedom and democracy they usually don’t want to consider it,” she mentioned.
This yr’s marketing campaign is being fought on principally home points, says Huang, whereas the regional and world occasions that formed the 2020 election, corresponding to Hong Kong’s democracy protests, have retreated into the background. The protests gave Taiwanese voters, nevertheless briefly, a glimpse of what a future may seem like below Chinese language rule, with photographs of younger protesters battling riot police or being arrested afterwards. Many had been fearful about what they noticed.
Each day life issues trump others
Most of the issues of younger Taiwanese are much like the issues confronted by younger individuals elsewhere on the earth, just like the rising value of dwelling in main cities and a housing market that favours the older technology over first-time consumers.
Al Jazeera interviewed six individuals below 40 attending final Sunday’s political rallies in Kaohsiung, and all named inexpensive housing as a key concern – one thing the DPP has did not resolve over the previous eight years.
Others might yearn for one thing totally different to Taiwan’s longstanding two-party system.
“Many younger persons are uninterested in the previous political tradition based mostly on the blue and inexperienced social gathering tradition,” mentioned 31-year-old Huang Ching-in, a outstanding member of the TPP and a Taipei Metropolis councillor, utilizing widespread nicknames for the “blue” KMT and “inexperienced” DPP.
“With the TPP, they see a distinct political mannequin,” she mentioned.
Ko’s supporters on Sunday spoke of how they favored his direct communication model and his use of social media, notably websites like YouTube that allow him join with voters away from the glare of Taiwan’s extremely partisan media panorama.
Huang highlighted these variations, as properly, and different instruments, such because the TPP’s use of reside streaming on Fb and Instagram, which she mentioned made younger voters really feel nearer to the social gathering and in a position to immediately ask its members questions.
Ko is notably the one main candidate trending on TikTok in Taiwan, the place on January 11 #柯文科2024 (#Ko Wen-je 2024) was within the prime 20 hashtags with 312 posts and 4 million views. The hashtag #總統大選 (#Presidential election) was trending in fifth place with greater than 1,000 posts and 25 million views and #選舉 (#election) in eighth place with 742 posts and 17 million views.
Some scepticism
However the former Taipei mayor has not gained over everybody, together with 26-year-old Chen Shu-wei, who spent his Sunday on the DPP’s rally in Kaohsiung.
“They’re extra worldwide and they’re extra open-minded to foreigners, and never simply from China,” Chen mentioned of the DPP towards the roaring backdrop of the rally. “That’s a very powerful [reason] for me to vote DPP.”
Chen mentioned he thought that whereas Ko knew the best way to speak to voters and inform them what they wished to listen to, he lacked the required management expertise and credentials.
An identical level was raised by 26-year-old Wilson, who additionally most popular to not share his full identify, as he stopped by the KMT rally in Kaohsiung, standing out among the many in any other case a lot older crowd of social gathering supporters – a lot of whom may have been contemporaries together with his grandparents.
Wilson advised Al Jazeera that he was making some extent of attending all of the political rallies within the metropolis and had but to decide on his most popular candidate, however he was nonetheless considerably cautious of Ko regardless of his recognition amongst different voters his age.
At 64, Ko was nonetheless a part of the older technology, Wilson mentioned, making him a up to date of DPP candidate Lai, who can be 64, and KMT candidate Hou Yu-ih, who’s a few years older. Ko additionally misplaced some help amongst voters after an aborted try and run a joint ticket with the KMT in November, leaving questions on his negotiating abilities and political savvy.
Regardless of positioning himself as one thing of an iconoclast, a few of Ko’s insurance policies are much like these being provided by the opposite events.
He has referred to as for Taiwan to renew talks on the very KMT-led commerce cope with China that triggered the Sunflower Motion a decade in the past.
Equally, his name for a “third method” to interact with China between the “polarised” views of the KMT and DPP, however his help of the continued “established order” of Taiwan is similar to each events. Some analysts have already predicted that Taiwan’s China coverage will stay largely the identical, no matter who wins the presidency.
Lev Nachman, an assistant professor at Taiwan’s Nationwide Chengchi College who researches Taiwanese electoral politics, cautioned towards pondering of younger voters as a unanimous bloc, regardless of Ko’s clear enchantment to a few of them.
“We have now this concept that younger individuals all care about wages and housing, and I believe that’s a little bit of an overstatement,” Nachman mentioned. “I don’t suppose younger individuals have these very clear thought out coverage platforms that we ascribe to them. Definitely, a variety of them do care about wages and housing, however a variety of them simply don’t just like the DPP as a result of they’re the DPP. It’s so simple as that.”
