1960 Taiwanese local elections

← 1957 24 April 1960 (1960-04-24) 1964 →
All 21 mayors/magistrates of cities, counties
Majority party Minority party Third party   Leader Chiang Kai-shek Unclear[a] None Party Kuomintang Democratic Socialist Independent Popular vote 2,339,200 43,948 775,823 Percentage 72.02% 1.35% 23.89% Swing 6.64pp Mayors/ Magistrates 19 1 1 Change 1
Kuomintang   Independents   Not up for election (Yangmingshan, Fuchien)

Local elections were held in Taiwan on 24 April 1960, the fourth nation-wide elections in post-war Taiwan, electing all 21 mayors of cities and magistrates of counties with a four-year tenure. Fuchien Province, then under military administration, was not up for election. Election for Taiwan Provincial Council was held alongside the local elections to elect 73 councillors.

The ruling Kuomintang (KMT) controlled 19 administrative divisions after the election. Democratic Socialists (CDSP) were represented on city-level again after winning Keelung election, while Tangwai opposition was elected in Kaohsiung in the fallout of last election's controversial election fraud.

Summary

The list below shows the statistics of party membership of candidates standing in the election. Coloured box refers to the party membership of elected mayor or magistrate.

Re-elected incumbents are: Huang Chi-jui (Taipei City), Hung Chiao-jung (Nantou County), Lin Chin-sheng (Yunlin County), Huang Tzung-kun (Chiayi County), Hu Lung-pao (Tainan County), Huang Tuo-jung (Taitung County).

Detailed results

Taipei

The anticipated political comeback of Henry Kao was at last abandoned in surprise. Kao first registered to run in the mayoral election in March before leaving for Europe and America, but he announced revoking his registration after he returned a month later.^[2] Kao blamed Kuomintang for not allow supervision of vote counting, which he believed he could not prevent the party from rigging the election. But public speculated the withdrawal was related to his extramarital affairs.^[3][4]

The sudden quit from the election frustrated some of his Tangwai colleague. Huang Hsin-chieh, later Taipei City Councillor and leader of Tangwai movement, for example, turned passive in helping Kao in the 1964 mayoral poll.^[5]

Keelung

Two potential candidates emerged within the Kuomintang for the mayoral election, Tsai Huo-pao (蔡火炮), Keelung-born Speaker of City Council, and Li Kuo-chun (李國俊), long-time head of local party branch from Hubei.^[7] As mainland Chinese migrant (or waishengren) has already ruled Keelung for ten years, demands over a local mayor grew which gave rise to the favouring of Tsai.^[8] Perhaps in light of this situation, Tsai was arrested for smuggling,^[9] apparently by the secret police,^[7] while Li was nominated by the party after green-light at the party headquarter from Chiang Ching-kuo, President's son, and Secretary-general Tang Tsung (唐縱).^[7]

There were resentments within the party for backing another migrant for election, a government official was even considering breaking apart from the party and ran as an independent, only to be stopped after a meeting with Vice President Chen Cheng.^[8] Soon after taking over from Li as local party branch, Liu Ting-kuo resigned in protest against Li's nomination.^[7]

The Tangwai bloc was represented by former City Councillor Lin Fan-wang (林番王).

Li initially led over Lin but was then taken over as campaigning continued.^[7] Party infighting undermined Li's reputation after Li's problematic business was disclosed. Free China Journal also lambasted Li over last election's fraud and after he was revealed to have appointed a rapist, who was then expelled from Kuomintang, in the local party.^[10]

Amidst the increasingly dire situation, Keelung police were ordered by Tang Tsung to ban businesses celebrating for Lin.^[7] Businessmen, unions, temples, and even brothels were forced to donate for Li.^[11] Government-controlled newspapers, on the other hand, attacked Lin on his troubled marriage.^[7] A primary school teacher even assault a student after he voted for Lin in a mock election,^[12] and parents were threatened against rallying for Lin.^[13] These cohesive and suppressive actions, along with the biased campaigning favouring Li, infuriated the general public.

The election eventually saw Keelung-born Lin winning 55% of popular votes. The exhausted mayor-in-waiting was then in the hospital bed when news broke.^[14] When interviewed by the press, Lin commented "election is indeed like a basketball: the harder you hit it, the higher it bounces back."^[9]

Yilan

Taoyuan

Hsinchu

Miaoli

Kuomintang unexpectedly supported Lin Wei-kung (林為恭) from a local noble family as Magistrate of Miaoli, greatly upsetting Taiwan Provincial Councillor Liu Kuo-tsai who was very eager to secure the nomination. Liu was rumoured to be delisted by Chiang Kai-shek as he had been reported during February 28 incident for possessing guns. Lin, when nominated, was serving as the deputy for the brother of Vice President Chen Cheng, which might explain his political advancement. Kuomintang's decision is also regarded as to consolidate the rotation of power between two local factions, Lin's "Wang faction" and the "Liu faction".^[17]

Taichung

Changhua

Tangwai's Shih Hsi-hsun contested the magisterial seat for the third time, facing challenge from KMT-endorsed Lu Shih-ming (呂世明) and Yang Lien-chi (楊連基), expelled from the KMT after standing against party colleague in a township election.

Irregularities were again reported during election campaign, such as Kuomintang using dozens of billboard vehicles for rally despite only three were allowed.

This year's election was the repetition of 1954's between incumbent Chen Hsi-ching from the KMT and Shih Hsi-hsun from Tangwai, after Chen again secured party nomination. School teachers and students were urged to canvass for Lu, even music teachers taught Lu's electioneering song. Mayor of Changhua, an elected representative, demanded staff to join Lu's campaign team. On the election day, several polling stations experienced blackouts, while multiple ballots voting for Shih were counted into Lu's.

Lu was elected with around 59% of votes, sending the third defeat to Shih,

Nantou

Yunlin

Lin Chin-seng was chosen by the Kuomintang for re-election, standing against Youth's Su Tung-chi (蘇東啟).^[19] Huang Wen-tou (黃文斗) from the Kuomintang briefly registered as a candidate, rebelling against Lin after anti-Lin camp failed to convince Speaker Wu Hsing-wang (吳興旺) to run. However, Huang revoked his candidacy just nine days later.^[20]

Chiayi

Tainan

Kuomintang in Tainan City nominated Hsin Wen-bing, Speaker of the City Council, to challenge incumbent Yeh Ting-kuei.^[21] The election was assumed by the party with great importance as it is one of the most competitive since the 1950 local elections. High-ranking members from the party headquarter travelled south to monitor the election, and asked the rebels in the party to support decisions from the party.^[22]

Yeh's manifesto was vetted by Tainan City election authority, demanding him to remove "irritative" wording such as "to defend democracy" and "to avoid Tainan City Government falling into hands of those for personal gain".^[23] Opposition leader Lei Chen criticised the interference by authorities.^[24] In the midst of voting, six helpers of Yeh's campaign team were brought away, and was released after election concluded.^[25]

With an extraordinary turnout of 85.4%, Hsin defeated Yeh and regained control for the Kuomintang. Electoral frauds were later reported by constituents, such as repeated voting, vote-buying, counting invalid votes for Hsin, or ballots cast by others. Tangwai called for annulling the election results but did not succeed.^[26] Tens of thousands joined Yeh in a rally after the election to demonstrate solidarity.^[27]

Kaohsiung

The ruling party nominated Tai Liang-ching (戴良慶) to run against opposition incumbent Yu Teng-fa. As last election was believed to be defrauded by the authorities, many expressed sympathy to Yu that bolstered his popularity.^[29]

Kuomintang still ran a large-scale electioneering for Tai with headmasters, teachers, and village chiefs. With the amendment of election regulations, it became more difficult to manipulate the poll through ballot stuffing. Tai was also under attack for KMT's role in rigging the previous election.^[9] Yu eventually captured most of the districts in Kaohsiung County, not only in the stronghold of "black faction", but also in those of "white faction", and even Tai's own "red faction".^[30]

Kaohsiung mayoral election, in contrast, was relatively calm as "local faction" sent Chen Chi-chuan, whose family was close to President Chiang,^[31] to run for mayor, which was endorsed by Kuomintang. Despite unwilling to stand in the election, Chen conceded to party's pressure and was elected without contest after Yang Chin-hu (楊金虎) of the opposition withdrew.^[32][33]

Pingtung

Hualien

Taitung

"Huang faction" leader Huang Tuo-jung (黃拓榮) was backed by Kuomintang, while the rival "Wu faction" secretly helped independent Lin Te-tsun (林德村).^[35] But as the anti-Huang camp turned against Lin, Huang's anticipated victory became increasingly clear.^[36]

Penghu