ABSTRACT
In the National Assembly elections held in December 1986, Taiwan’s ruling Kuomintang (KMT) faced an opposition party for the first time. Although the newly formed Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was not yet a legally recognized party, this election marks the start of Taiwan’s multi-party politics. That year the KMT and the three-month-old DPP won approximately 95 per cent of available seats. Twenty-six years later, in the most recent national parliamentary election (2012) the same two parties won 92 per cent of seats. Therefore it appears that Taiwan has a remarkably stable party system compared to other new democracies or its immediate East Asian neighbours such as South Korea and Japan. Nevertheless, these figures disguise enormous change in the party system since 1986. This chapter attempts to review the existing research and key trends of continuity and change in Taiwan’s party politics.
