Taiwanese Attitudes toward the Political Newcomers in 2016
Taiwanese Attitudes toward the Political Newcomers in 2016

Summary/Abstract: Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan (LY) is commonly seen as an institution comprised of careerpoliticians. In fact, candidates without prior experience in elected seats of the island’spolitical structures are no strangers to the LY. Moreover, in the 2016 parliamentaryelections, the political novices enjoyed unprecedented support and achieved relativesuccess. The New Power Party (NPP), which only formed in early 2015 and popular mainlydue to the several debutants it fielded, including Freddy Lim, Hung Tzu-yung and HuangKuo-chang, emerged as the LY’s third-largest party. Although it garnered only five of the113 seats (4.4%), it was a great win for the fledgling party, ranking it third behind theKuomintang (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which have reignedover the island’s political scene for the past several decades.This article examines the phenomenon of Taiwanese novices. It looks at them fromthe voters’ perspective. It surveys the demographic profiles and political preferences ofTaiwanese who support the newcomers’ engagement in the political process, and comparesthem with citizens who express negative attitudes toward the newcomers.

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