I never voted. Though I’d turned 20, the legal voting age in Taiwan, quite a while ago.
To be honest, I couldn’t care less about politics. I am sick of political campaigns in Taiwan, most of which eventually (if not from the beginning) turn into cheap soap operas (that kind the heroine always has leukemia and daughters always get exchanged). It can be funny, at first sight, to see a candidate’s whole family involved in the rally (tears, fights, mother running after her candidate son), but you just get more depressed as you realize that the political world is turning itself into a big commercial—the higher exposure, the better.
But today, I finally went to the polling place of the legislative election and voted for the very first time in my life. And the reason I cast my vote?
If something can get worse, it can get better. Or so I believe.
Ted said
Did you pick up referendum ballots? I ended up staying in Taipei last Saturday because it’s a hassel to travel all the way to Tainan just to vote. I was pretty suprised at the election results though. Hope that the KMT won’t sweep the presidential election in March on the coattails of its landslide victory by winning two-thirds of seats in the legislature.
averytaiwan said
You must regret not having come back to vote then hehe
Yes, I did cast the referendum ballots.
I believe the extremely low voting rate of the referendum could attributed to the fact that a lot of people didn’t even know there was such a thing! Like my grandpa, he couldn’t even understand Mandarin, and how would a illiterate old man take part in a referendum, given no sufficient instruction in advance?
Ted said
yah that and the god damn KMT’s campiagn to boycott the referenda prior to the elections. It only did so because it didn’t want the DPP-initiated plebiscite on retrieving its stolen assets to pass.