The future of Taiwan’s democracy is on the line as the self-ruled island’s 19 million voters decide on whether to give independence-leaning President Tsai Ing-wen a second term.
A supporter holds a doll in the image of of Han Kuo-yu, Taiwan's 2020 presidential election candidate of the KMT or Nationalist Party, during a campaign rally in southern Taiwan's Kaohsiung city on Friday, Jan 10, 2020. Taiwan will hold its presidential election on Jan. 11, 2020.
For many in Taiwan, months of protests in Hong Kong have cast in stark relief the contrast between their democratically governed island and authoritarian, communist-ruled mainland China.“Let’s get out there and vote tomorrow, let us tell the world with our own votes that Taiwanese are determined to defend sovereignty, determined to guard democracy and determined to persist in reforms,” she said at a rally late Friday.
Fears of Chinese interference in Taiwan’s politics and an uptick in the economy have helped Tsai regain an edge after a dire electoral setback for her Democratic Progressive Party 14 months ago. Still, the election of former lawmaker Han as Kaohsiung’s mayor in December 2018 helped to re-energize the Nationalists, who lost their hold on power four years ago. They had governed since their forces fled to Taiwan from the mainland with the communists’ civil war victory in 1949.
A win by Tsai is anticipated to draw more diplomatic, economic and military pressure from Beijing on the island, in a continuation of President Xi Jinping’s campaign to compel her administration to endorse its insistence that Taiwan is a part of China.
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