TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — National Taiwan University Public Health Professor Chan Chang-chuan (詹長權) wrote in a Facebook post on Monday (Nov. 28) that the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) loss during the nine-in-one local elections reflects a rift in how the government and people see Taiwan’s anti-COVID-19 policies.
“A COVID case, no matter if it ends in recovery, hospitalization, or death, is a very unpleasant experience of illness that has the patient and the patient’s family living in continuous anxiety, fear, and inconvenience for over a month,” Chan wrote in his post. “It is therefore inevitable that the difficult COVID experience affects many people’s election behavior.”
According to Chan, COVID’s development in Taiwan can be divided into three stages:
- Between January 2020 and mid-2021, when the number of COVID cases per million people remained far below world average;
- Between mid-2021 and April 2022, when the number of COVID cases per million people remained below world average but neared world average for a few days; and
- From April 2022 onwards, when the number of COVID cases per million people rose high above world average.
Chan claimed that the government and DPP’s perception of COVID development in Taiwan as well as their assessment and interpretation of their pandemic curbing performance has remained in the first stage. Meanwhile, the media and legislators’ focus has focused on the second stage, while most citizens’ experiences are in stage three, which is also when the elections occurred.
“The fact that the DPP fell behind opposition parties in votes for its mayoral and magisterial candidates reflects the great difference between how the DPP government and citizens view COVID developments,” he wrote. He added that whether or not COVID continues to impact the presidential and legislative elections, which will occur in 14 months, “depends on whether the DPP can face honestly the public’s review of anti-pandemic measures and the Central Epidemic Command Center’s (policy) changes, which was conveyed through a democratic process.”
Chan concluded that unless the DPP can improve on the ineffective and inefficient anti-COVID policies and lower COVID’s impact on society, it may very likely face another defeat in 2024.
