The Taiwanese people finally said "no" to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) on Saturday after suffering five years of poor performance from the administration led by "president" Chen Shui-bian.

Even mud-slinging and other dirty tricks did not save the party from a major loss in Saturday's local government elections, in which the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) secured a landslide victory.

The KMT won 50.96 percent of votes, giving it 14 out of the total 23 county and city magistrate posts across the island. That marked an increase of six for the KMT, which walked out of the shadow of loss for the first time since losing its 51-year rule of the island to the DPP in 2000.

The DPP won 41.95 percent of votes and grabbed only six seats, down from its current 10.

The other three seats went to KMT allies the People First Party, the New Party and an independent candidate.

A much heavier blow to the DPP was its loss in Taipei county the island's biggest constituency where the DPP has ruled for 16 years as well as its two strongholds of Ilan county and Chiayi city.

Although Saturday's polls appeared to be merely local in character, they were widely seen as a mid-term test of Chen's popularity, given their far-reaching political influence on the March 2008 "presidential" elections.

The election loss was actually a "no-confidence vote" handed by the Taiwanese people to the DPP administration, which took power under Chen in May 2000.

It was no surprise that DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang, who resigned late on Saturday because of the defeat, described the outcome as "a stern warning from the people to the DPP."

KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou said the election "is not a case of the KMT defeating the DPP, but of the DPP defeating itself."

Besides massive corruption scandals involving high-ranking DPP officials, the poor management of Chen and his administration has shattered the people's faith in the ruling party.

While being notoriously good at provoking ethnic disputes to woo voters, the election-minded Chen did a bad job of addressing the island's economic woes for the well-being of its 23 million people.

Rather, he has intensified his push for "Taiwan independence" through rampant secessionist activities and inciting confrontation and hostility across the Straits.

All these practices were blamed for the marginalization of Taiwan's economy and the declining level of Taiwanese people's standard of living over the past five years.

As an obvious sign of the voters' dissatisfaction with Chen's flip-flopping cross-Straits policies, the "mainland card" played strongly by Chen and his party in previous elections failed to work this time.

That suggests the majority of Taiwanese people want peace and stability, rather than tension and enmity, in cross-Straits relations and aspire to develop closer ties with the mainland.

It would be beneficial for the island and its people if Chen and his DPP administration could learn a lesson from the election setback and review their policies.

But it cannot be ruled out that Chen, as he pledged ahead of Saturday's vote, may go further to strain cross-Straits ties during the remaining two years of his term while ignoring mainstream public opinion on the island.

Then the DPP risks being voted out by denying the opportunity to regain confidence from the people.

(China Daily December 5, 2005)