Taiwan’s 1989 national election

Abstract

Taiwan, or officially the Republic of China, has had four elections in recent years that have impacted the election process and contributed to the nation’s rapid evolution toward democracy. The December 1989 election was the fourth and perhaps the most important. It was the first since martial law was terminated. New political parties were legal. the nation had a new election law. The results of the election favored the opposition, Democratic Progressive Party. Other opposition parties did not perform well, suggesting a two-party system is evolving. More important in the view of the author, it signals many salient changes in Taiwan’s polity of both a positive and negative nature.