The outcome of the votes in Taichung on Saturday’s national referendums is a warning sign to the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) in the city’s legislative by-election next month, an academic said Saturday.

Shen Yu-chung (???), a political science professor at Tunghai University, said the results of the referendum could, to some extent, hurt Yen Kuan-heng (???), a former legislator who has been nominated by the KMT to run in the by-election in Taichung’s second electoral district on Jan. 9.

Yen will face off against former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker Lin Ching-yi (???) in the battle to succeed the Taiwan Statebuilding Party’s Chen Po-wei (???), who was ousted in a recall vote held on Oct. 23.

On Saturday, the KMT suffered a major setback after voters rejected four referendums it had supported to challenge several of the government’s policies and approaches to governing.

The KMT must quickly look past its defeat, not just in terms of momentum, but also organization and mobilization, to regroup and refocus its attention to the upcoming Taichung by-election, Shen said.

Although the by-election and the referendum are completely separate matters, the referendum results on Saturday can still be viewed as a warning sign as to what could happen because voters there opposed three of the four referendum initiatives, he said.

Also Saturday, National Taiwan University political science professor Wang Yeh-lih (???) believed that the national referendum results will not have any influence on the special election in Taipei to recall independent Legislator Freddy Lim (???) on Jan. 9.

Although Taipei has a lot of KMT supporters and the referendums can be viewed as a face-off between the KMT and DPP, Wang said voters would still focus on whether the reasons for recalling Lin were justified.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel