TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Former Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) gave four reasons why Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) failed so dismally in the local elections that took place on Saturday (Nov. 26), highlighting the central government’s COVID-19 response as part of the problem in a lengthy Facebook post on Monday.
Lu said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) won a total of 8.17 million votes in her reelection campaign, but the party garnered only 4.74 million votes in the mayoral and county commissioner elections. This meant the party had "lost the hearts” of 3.33 million voters in less than three years.
She attributed the DPP's local elections fiasco to four factors:
- Collapse of party discipline
- Decline of party morality
- Arrogance and incompetence of those in power
- Bringing Taiwan to the brink of war
The former VP included the central government’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic as a manifestation of the arrogance and incompetence of those in power. She said this contributed to the ruling party’s loss in the local elections.
She stated that the Cabinet set a budget of as high as NT$840 billion (US$26.88 billion) to deal with the pandemic. However, despite no significant breakouts in Taiwan, with only a few cases in the north, the government strictly prohibited economic activity and infringed on people’s livelihoods.
When the epidemic spread in 2021, there were shortages of vaccines and rapid screening test kits, forcing the country to accept assistance from other countries. Lu slammed the Medigen COVID-19 vaccine, calling it a scam from beginning to end.
The Central Epidemic Command Center has been tyrannically abusing its power and bombarded the public with its daily COVID briefing, she said. Of the 23.5 million people in Taiwan, more than 8 million people have been diagnosed with the disease, and 14,235 people have died due to improper epidemic prevention, she added.
She went on to say that during one period, Taiwan had the third-highest average death rate per million in the world, but the president and the premier persistently said that Taiwan was a "model student" in epidemic prevention for the world, which is laughable. They even used this manufactured clout to support Health Minister Chen Shih-chung’s (陳時中) campaign in the Taipei mayoral race, which he lost, she wrote.
