ABSTRACT
For lovers of elections, Taiwan was a paradise in the 1990s. Not only were there numerous elections, they were also spread out on the calendar. As someone living in Taiwan for most of the decade, it seemed like there were major elections every year, and sometimes there were even two. In fact, the only year without a major election was 1999, but that year Taiwan was preparing for its presidential election to be held in March 2000. This represented both opportunities and challenges for new and small parties such as the Green Party Taiwan (GPT). In the period covered in this chapter, there were elections for local county executives in November 1997; elections for county and city councils in January 1998; and special municipality and national parliamentary elections in December 1998. There could have been even more, but as a result of constitutional reforms, the provincial level and National Assembly elections were cancelled. The challenge for the GPT was which contests and locations to concentrate its limited resources on. This chapter will follow a similar format to the previous one. In other words, I will first discuss the way the GPT campaigned in 1998 and then focus on how best to understand its electoral performances.
