A couple of weeks ago, the British media got very excited about a by-election in provincial Kent in which a candidate for the anti-immigration UK Independence party won a solitary seat, doubling its tally in parliament at a stroke. If that was a political upheaval then what occurred last weekend in Taiwan was more like a Krakatoa-sized eruption. In the so-called called “nine-in-one election”, voters chose nine categories of officials, from village heads to city mayors. More than 11,000 seats were at stake and the turnout was a hefty 68 per cent. The result was a crushing defeat for the governing Kuomintang party, or KMT, and a triumph for the opposition Democratic Progressive party.
两周前，肯特郡的补缺选举曾令英国媒体大为兴奋，反对移民的英国独立党(UKIP)候选人在此赢得一席，一举将该党在国会中的席位翻番。如果这已经算是一场政治动荡，那么上周末台湾的选举堪称喀拉喀托级别的火山爆发。