The First Party Turnover
By the late 1990s, Taiwan's political landscape stood at an unprecedented crossroads. More than half a century of uninterrupted Kuomintang rule had weathered the lifting of martial law in 1987, the full re-election of the legislature, and the first direct presidential election in 1996. Yet the island's democratic transition remained incomplete so long as no opposition party had ever assumed the highest office. Internal fissures within the KMT, disillusionment with "black gold" politics, and the maturing organizational strength of the Democratic Progressive Party converged to set the stage for a pivotal contest.
On 18 March 2000, in a three-way race between Chen Shui-bian of the DPP, independent James Soong, and the KMT's Lien Chan, Chen prevailed with 39.3 percent of the vote. When he was sworn in on 20 May, fifty-five years of KMT rule in Taiwan formally came to an end and, for the first time in any ethnically Chinese polity, executive power passed peacefully between rival parties through the ballot box. The international press hailed the transition as a milestone of democratic consolidation; voters on the island, however, soon confronted its hard realities — a divided government in which the KMT retained a legislative majority, unresolved tensions over national identity and cross-strait relations, and a Beijing that refused to congratulate the new president.
The Chen presidency opened an era of contested sovereignty, bitter partisan gridlock, and recurring constitutional refer…
The Chen presidency opened an era of contested sovereignty, bitter partisan gridlock, and recurring constitutional referenda. Yet the institutional lesson of 2000 endured: Taiwan's democracy could survive the rotation of power. The second turnover in 2008 returned the KMT under Ma Ying-jeou to office, and the third in 2016 brought Tsai Ing-wen and the DPP back. Each handover reinforced the same quiet norm — that sovereignty rests with the voters, and that elections, not force or faction, decide who governs.
This volume revisits the first party turnover and the turbulent decades that followed. Through inauguration speeches, contested ballots, cabinet records, and contemporary reportage, it traces how Taiwan's young democracy matured from the exhilaration of 2000 into a settled, if often fractious, system in which the peaceful transfer of power has become ordinary.
Turnout on 18 March 2000 was 82.7 per cent. The count gave Chen Shui-bian 4.97 million votes, James Soong 4.66 million and Lien Chan 2.92 million — the governing party's candidate came third, while the two ahead of him were, respectively, from an opposition party and an independent who had left the ruling party. Three hundred thousand votes decided the first transfer of power in Taiwan's history. Many people sat in front of a television that night for reasons beyond who had won. Counting from 1949, the party in office on this island had never changed; a direct presidential election arrived in 1996 and the same party won it. Not until after eight that evening did a ballot do what fifty years of ballots had not. In the days that followed the news was about whether the army or the security services would act, whether the market would collapse, and what would become of the ruling party's assets. Nothing happened, and the handover took place on 20 May as scheduled.
20 May 2000: Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party takes the oath of office as the tenth-term President of the Republic of China, marking the first peaceful transfer of executive power between parties in Taiwan's history.
Office of the President, Republic of China (Taiwan)
The official ballot for the 2000 Republic of China presidential election, listing the five candidate pairings including Chen Shui-bian, James Soong, and Lien Chan — the three-way race that ended more than half a century of Kuomintang rule.
Central Election Commission, Republic of China
Outgoing President Lee Teng-hui hands the seal of state to President-elect Chen Shui-bian at the Presidential Office Building — a symbolic gesture that formalized Taiwan's first democratic transfer of power between rival parties.
Central News Agency (Taiwan)
Isle of Time