Elections in the Republic of China

This article is about the elections in Taiwan. For the article about the elections in China, see Elections in the People's Republic of China.

Elections of the Republic of China (ROC) gives information on election and election results in the Republic of China (Chinese: 中華民國; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Mínguó) with effective control over Taiwan Area since 1949. The Republic of China elects on national level a head of state - the president - and a legislature. The president is elected for a four-year term by the people. Prior to 2007, the Legislative Yuan (Lifa Yuan 立法院) had 225 members, 168 members elected for a three-year term in multi-seat constituencies, 8 members representing the aboriginals, 41 members elected by proportional representation and 8 members representing the overseas Chinese elected by proportional representation. Amid 70% public support, the Legislative Yuan voted 217-1 on August 23, 2004 for a package of amendments to:

• halve the number of seats from 225 to 113
• switch to a single-member district parallel voting electoral system
• increase the terms of members from 3 to 4 years, to synchronize the legislative and presidential elections. (It is unclear whether this will be implemented for the next presidential and legislative elections with small parties opposing the move, because it would reduce their chances of getting better results)

The new electoral system will include 73 plurality seats (one for each electoral district), 6 seats for aboriginals, with the remaining 34 seats to be filled from party lists. Every county has a minimum of 1 electoral district, thereby guaranteed at least one seat in the legislature, while party lists for the proportionally represented seats must be half women. Members for this 34 party lists seats shall be elected from the lists of political parties in proportion to the number of votes won by each party that obtains at least 5 percent of the total vote on the Free Area of the Republic of China (中華民國自由地區).

The ROC has a multi-party system, but there are only a few major parties organized into two factions: the Pan-Blue Coalition and the Pan-Green Coalition.

Schedule

Election

Position	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
Type	Legislative Yuan (January) Presidential (March)	None	Gubernatorial (November)	None	Legislative Yuan (January) Presidential (March)	None	Gubernatorial (November)
President and Vice President	President and Vice President	None			President and Vice President	None
Legislative Yuan	All seats	None			All seats	None
Provinces, cities and municipalities	None		All positions	None			All positions

Inauguration

Position	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
Type	Legislative Yuan (February) Presidential (May)	None	Gubernatorial (December)	None	Legislative Yuan (February) Presidential (May)	None	Gubernatorial (December)
President and Vice President	20 May	None			20 May	None
Legislative Yuan	1 February	None			1 February	None
Provinces, cities and municipalities	None		25 December	None			25 December

Latest elections

2012 Presidential election

Main article: Republic of China presidential election, 2012

 Summary of the 14 January 2012 Republic of China presidential election results

Party		Candidate		Votes	Percentage
		President	Vice president
	Kuomintang	Ma Ying-jeou (incumbent)	Wu Den-yih	6,891,139	51.60%
	Democratic Progressive Party	Tsai Ing-wen	Su Jia-chyuan	6,093,578	45.63%
	People First Party	James Soong Chu-yu	Lin Ruey-shiung	369,588	2.77%
Total				13,354,305	100%

2012 Legislative election

Main article: Republic of China legislative election, 2012

 Summary of the 14 January 2012 Legislative Yuan election results

Parties (alliances)		constituency + Aboriginal		Party block		Votes	%	Total seats
		Seats	±	Seats	±			Before	After	±
	Kuomintang	48	13	16	4	5,863,379	44.55	81	64	17
	People First Party	1	0	2	2	722,089	5.49	1	3	2
	Non-Partisan Solidarity Union	2	1	0	0	148,105	1.12	3	2	1
	New Party	0	0	0	0	195,960	1.49	0	0	0
	Pan-Blue coalition	51	14	18	2	7,503,517	51.48	85	69	16
	Democratic Progressive Party	27	14	13	1	4,556,526	34.62	27	40	13
	Taiwan Solidarity Union	0	0	3	3	1,178,896	8.96	0	3	3
	Pan-Green coalition	27	14	16	2	5,735,422	43.56	27	43	16
	Independents	1	0	0	0	2,528	0.02	1	1	0
Total		79	0	34	0	13,241,467	100%	113	113	0
Source: Central Election Commission

2008 Presidential election

Main article: Republic of China presidential election, 2008

 Summary of the 22 March 2008 Republic of China presidential election results

Party		Candidate		Votes	Percentage
		President	Vice president
	Kuomintang	Ma Ying-jeou	Vincent Siew Wan-chang	7,659,014	58.45%
	Democratic Progressive Party	Frank Hsieh Chang-ting	Su Tseng-chang	5,444,949	41.55%
Total				13,103,963	100.00%

2008 Legislative election

Main article: Republic of China legislative election, 2008

 Summary of the Republic of China Legislative Yuan elections, 2008

Parties		Constituency and Aboriginal				Party list			Total seats
		Votes	%	+/−	Seats	Votes	%	Seats	Outgoing	%	Incoming	%	+/−
	Kuomintang registration	5,291,512	53.5	+20.7	61	5,010,801	51.2	20	90	40.0	81	71.7	+31.7
	Kuomintang				54			17	85		71
	People First Party co-nomination				5			3	-		8
	New Party endorsement				2			-	5		2
	Non-Partisan Solidarity Union	239,317	2.4	-1.2	3	68,527	0.7	0	8	3.6	3	2.7	-0.9
	People First Party	28,254	0.3	-13.3	1	-	-	-	20	8.9	1	0.9	-8.0
	New Party	-	-	(-0.1)	-	386,660	4.0	0	-	-	0	0	-
	Pan-Blue coalition	5,559,083	56.2	+5.7	65	5,465,988	55.9	20	118	52.4	85	75.2	+22.8
	Democratic Progressive Party	3,775,352	38.2	+2.5	13	3,610,106	36.9	14	90	40.0	27	23.9	-16.1
	Taiwan Solidarity Union	93,840	0.9	-6.9	0	344,887	3.5	0	7	3.1	0	0	-3.1
	Taiwan Constitution Association	3,926	<0.1		0	30,315	0.3	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Pan-Green coalition	3,863,118	39.1	-4.4	13	3,954,993	40.7	14	97	43.1	27	23.9	-19.2
	Home Party	6,355	<0.1		0	77,870	0.8	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Green Party Taiwan	14,767	0.1		0	58,473	0.6	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Taiwan Farmers' Party	8,681	<0.1		0	57,144	0.6	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Civil Party	6,562	<0.1		0	48,192	0.5	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Third Society Party	10,057	0.1		0	45,594	0.5	0	1	0.4	0	0	-0.4
	Hakka Party	8,860	<0.1		0	42,004	0.4	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Independents	393,346	4.0	-1.9	1	-	-	-	1	0.4	1	0.9	+0.5
	Vacant	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	8	3.6	-	-	-
	Total	10,050,619	-	-	-	10,076,239	-	-	225	100	113	100	-

2005 National Assembly election

Main article: Republic of China National Assembly election, 2005

 Summary of the 14 May 2005 Republic of China National Assembly election results

Parties	Votes	Percentage (%)		Seats
Parties in favor of the amendments				249
Democratic Progressive Party	1,647,791	42.52		127
Kuomintang	1,508,384	38.92		117
___ Chinese People's Party	41,940	1.08		3
___ Peasant Party	15,516	0.40		1
___ Civil Party	8,609	0.22		1
Parties not in favor of the amendments				51
Taiwan Solidarity Union	273,147	7.05		21
People First Party	236,716	6.11		18
___ 150 persons union led by Jhang Ya Jhong	65,081	1.68		5
New Party	34,253	0.88		3
Non-Partisan Solidarity Union	25,162	0.65		2
Taiwan Independence Party	11,500	0.30		1
___ 20 persons union led by Wang Ting Sing	7,499	0.19		1
Total (turnout )				300

Past elections

NB: Does not include the 1948 election held in the Republic of China before the fall of mainland China to the communist government of the People's Republic of China. The terms of those elected from mainland seats lasted until December 31, 1991.

Party elections

• Kuomintang chairmanship election, 2005
• Democratic Progressive Party chairmanship election, 2006

See also

• History of the Republic of China
• Politics of the Republic of China
• Administrative divisions of the Republic of China
• Electoral calendar
• Electoral system
• Kuomintang

External links

• Adam Carr's Election Archive
• ROC Central Election Commission
• Constitution of the Republic of China (english)
• List of the seven revisions of the Republic of China COnstitution (english)