2000 Taiwanese presidential election

Kuomintang The ruling Kuomintang (KMT) ran vice president Lien Chan for president and Premier Vincent Siew for vice president. Though more popular and consistently ranked higher in the polls, the outspoken former Taiwan governor James Soong failed to gain the Kuomintang's nomination. As a result, he announced his candidacy as an independent candidate. The Kuomintang responded by expelling Soong in November 1999. It is a very common belief among KMT supporters that president Lee Teng-hui was secretly supporting Chen Shui-bian, and purposely supported the less popular Lien in order to split the Kuomintang, Soong, a mainlander, tried to appeal to the native Taiwanese by nominating surgeon Chang Chao-hsiung, who is a native Taiwanese, as his running-mate. This, combined with the fact that Chang had connections to both the Democratic Progressive Party and the KMT reinforced Soong's campaign message of bridging political and cultural divide. In December 1999 the KMT began to attack Soong's integrity. They sued Soong for theft, alleging that as party secretary-general, he stole millions of Taiwan dollars in cash intended for the family of the late president Chiang Ching-kuo and hid the money in the Chunghsing Bills Finance Co. Soong defended himself by saying he was acting under Lee's direction, The resolution accepted the status quo and promoted the moderate view that Taiwan was already independent, so any formal declaration would not be urgently necessary, if at all, and Chen presented a more conciliatory stance regarding the mainland. The last minute public endorsement of Chen Shui-bian by President of the Academia Sinica and Nobel laureate Yuan T. Lee is also thought to have played a role in his election, Former DPP Chairman Hsu Hsin-liang, who had quit the party after failing to prevent Chen from running, ran as an independent with New Party (NP) legislator Josephine Chu as his running mate. a move not then supported by the KMT. During the 2000 campaign, the Hsu-Chu ticket promoted unification under something similar to, but not the same as, 'one country, two systems', claiming that that exact system would be "bound to bring immediate loss to Taiwan". The New Party nominated independent social commentator Li Ao—an acclaimed author, historian, and former political prisoner—for president and legislator Elmer Fung for vice president. Li, who supported "one country, two systems", said he took the election as an opportunity to educate the people in Taiwan on his ideas, and show them the nation's "dark side". Despite his nomination Li refused to join the NP. A white paper issued by the People's Republic of China (PRC) prior to the election had mentioned that they would "not permit the 'Taiwan question' to drag on", which generated condemnation from American leaders, including John Kerry and Stanley Roth; along with a downturn in the stock market, but little in terms of a Taiwanese reaction. Then, shortly before the election, Zhu Rongji, the premier of the People's Republic of China attempted to influence the outcome, warning that voters should "not just act on impulse at this juncture, which will decide the future course that China and Taiwan will follow" and should "shun a pro-independence candidate", further stating that "[n]o matter who comes into power in Taiwan, Taiwan will never be allowed to be independent. This is our bottom line and the will of 1.25 billion Chinese people." According to Christopher R. Hughes, emeritus professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics, a conclusion was made that the statements of Chinese government had actually been counterproductive and helped Chen to win; consequently, China avoided making such an open attempt to influence the 2004 elections, adopting a "wait and see" attitude with Chen. ==Results==

Voting was held on 18 March 2000. Chen's ticket won by a margin of about 2.46%, ahead of Soong in second place and Chan in third. Generally, the Soong ticket led in the northern half of Taiwan, while the Chen ticket led in the south; however, there were exceptions, including Yilan County in the north, whose vote Chen won, and Taitung County in the south, whose vote Soong won. By administrative division Maps == Aftermath ==

Chen's victory was seen as unlikely before Soong's financial scandal broke out. Under the first-past-the-post voting system, the split of the KMT vote between James Soong and Lien Chan, who together polled nearly 60% of the vote (compared to Chen's 39%), played a large role in the Taiwan independence-leaning candidate Chen's victory. This also marked the first peaceful transition of power under a democratic regime in Chinese history. As the results were announced, several thousand protesters, mostly KMT loyalists who believed Lee Teng-hui had intentionally tried to sabotage the pro-unification vote, gathered outside the KMT headquarters in Taipei and demanded Lee resign as Chairman. Lee promised to resign at the party congress in September 2000. though Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou attempted to dispel the crowd on the first night. Ma Ying-jeou also resigned from the Central Standing Committee of the KMT as a result of his dissatisfaction with the leadership at the time, calling for reform. In the following party congress, Lien Chan was able to achieve Lee's expulsion To avoid a repeat of the 2000 split, Lien and Soong agreed to run on a single ticket as president and vice president, respectively, in the 2004 election. They made the announcement on 14 February 2003, more than a year before the next presidential election. Nevertheless, they were still defeated by Chen Shui-bian in the next election. Some authors, including John Fuh-hsieng Hsieh and Shelley Rigger, surmised that Chen Shui-bian's ascent to the presidency was not as groundbreaking as might be thought: the presidency's supposed power was largely drawn from the power a KMT leader would have when both the legislature and the presidency were controlled by the party, but the government of Taiwan was largely dominated by the legislative branch, which remained under the control of the KMT. As such, Chen ascended into a relatively weak presidency. Consequently, Chen's first cabinet consisted of some KMT members along with DPP members. However, after the legislative elections in 2001, Chen was expected to be able to exert more influence, due to the KMT's loss of a majority. Chen's more pro-independence stance initially caused concerns on behalf of the United States to raise such that they sent senior officials to the PRC to ease tensions. Tensions later relaxed, though a somewhat rocky relationship remained. ==Notes==