Beijing’s ‘enemy’ takes Taiwan poll led as China’s best hope falls apart

Opposition parties fail to unify ahead of registration deadline in boon to ruling party candidate, the current favorite.

William Lai and running mate Hsiao Bi-khim register their ticket last week. Picture: AFP

The candidate most loathed by Beijing is the slight favourite to win Taiwan’s fast-approaching presidential election after an ­attempt to unite the opposition imploded in farce.

Less than 50 days until the January 13 vote, William Lai, the incumbent Vice-President and chairman of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, is ahead in all public polling, despite Beijing’s threats about grave consequences if the “separatist” and “troublemaker” is elected.

In recent weeks, Taiwan’s ­opposition parties looked poised to form a coalition agreement that would have all but assured their victory. Instead they squabbled publicly before ending their co-operation in a bizarre spectacle hours before Friday’s nomination deadline.

That has left Mr Lai, who once described himself as a “political worker for Taiwanese independence”, as the candidate most likely to replace President Tsai Ing-wen as Taiwan comes under immense pressure from Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“It’s still largely Lai’s election to lose,” Wen-Ti Sung, a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, told The Australian.

The Kuomintang (KMT), Beijing’s preferred political partner and Taiwan’s main opposition party, has cast the election as a choice between “war and peace”, in an attempt to capitalise on fears about Mr Xi’s intentions towards the liberal democracy of 23 ­million people.

The KMT’s presidential candidate, Hou You-yi, the Mayor of New Taipei and a former policeman, has struggled to cut through in a crowded field.

Mr Hou finally had some good news late last week when Terry Gou, a Taiwanese billionaire with large business interests in China, pulled out of the race hours before the nomination deadline.

Mr Gou, founder of iPhone manufacturer Foxconn, had tried unsuccessfully to become the KMT’s candidate before entering the race as an independent, claiming he wanted to “unite the opposition”.

On Thursday evening, the businessman presided over a rambling public negotiation at Taipei’s Grand Hyatt Hotel, which was nominally aimed at bringing together the KMT and the third-placed Ko Wen-Je, the founder of the upstart Taiwan People’s Party.

The event descended into a squabbling fiasco in front of a crowd of disbelieving media, with campaign staffers fighting over microphones, Mr Gou boasting of his access to the hotel’s owner in Chicago and one candidate reading out private text messages from another.

“One of the most dramatically silly moments in Taiwan’s history since democratisation,” said Lev Nachman, an assistant professor at Taipei’s National Chengchi ­University.

The end of Mr Gou’s candidacy has already improved the KMT’s standing in the polls, with the latest by My Formosa showing Mr Hou rising to 31.1 per cent, only a fraction behind the DPP candidate’s 31.4 per cent in a three-way race. Mr Ko was on 25.2 per cent.

Most polls this year have had Mr Lai further ahead.

An adviser to the KMT told The Australian they would try to cast Mr Ko, the former Taipei mayor, as “volatile” after he agreed to a joint opposition ticket only to backflip on the deal.

Mr Sung, an expert on Taiwanese politics who is closely following the contest, said Mr Ko had damaged his political brand with the messy negotiations.

“He’s meant to be the anti-­establishment candidate. In attempting numerous times to do a deal with the KMT, that naturally chips away at that,” he said.

Capitals around the world are concerned about Beijing’s reaction to the election, which will start what Taiwanese security officials have called a “year of uncertainty”.

However, many voters in Taiwan say they are more worried about domestic issues, such as cost-of-living pressure, a sluggish economy and a weak jobs market.

“In Taiwan, we survive but we don’t live,” said one twenty-something Taiwainese man, who works as a gym instructor.

He said he was still deciding how he would vote.