December is election month in Taiwan. You’d have thought that after presidential elections (March last year), legislative elections (December last year), and National Assembly elections (May this year), we were due a bit of a break. Not so – Taiwan works on the principle that a democracy needs elections, and lots of them!

This time around, it’s local elections. These always used to be the preserve of corruption and vote-buying – with the candidate who could provide the most ‘incentives’ for his constituency a surefire winner. Nowadays, things have improved no end, to the point where the election is all about … allegations of corruption and vote buying. The candidate who can make the most mud stick to his opponent wins. Jason at Wandering to Tamshui does an excellent job of rounding up the major battles.

Are these elections important? Well, a good mayor or county commissioner will probably have more direct impact on the lives of the people who live there than a good legislator or president. However, there’s little reason to support the ‘this is a make-or-break election for the DPP/KMT’ hyperventilation which seems to be common in the Taiwanese media. While party loyalties will play a big part in how people vote, they shouldn’t: party policies give very little direction to local politics.

So although these elections will give some sort of measure of how popular the major parties are at the moment – beware of anyone who tries to read too much into the results.