The results of the Taiwan general elections had been eagerly
awaited for a long time. Especially the results of the local elections in 2018
made these general elections more remarkable. In addition, the protests in Hong
Kong increased the importance of the Taiwan general elections.
In this article, I will first describe my observations in
general elections. Then I will briefly explain the results of Twitter analysis
about Taiwan general election, which I analyzed with the text analysis method.
OBSERVATION
In the morning, I started
following the general elections in Taiwan. At the same time, I also tried to
feel the political atmosphere inside country. Because of that reason, I
talked with some of my Taiwanese friends. Around 7 PM, the election results
began to be announced. Around 7.30pm, I first went to the KMT's
headquarter in Kaohsiung. However, the KMT headquarter was quite empty. The
most important reason for this was that DPP was ahead by far, according to the
first results. Another important reason was that pan-blue party sympathizers
did not trust their candidates.
Around 8 pm, the results began to
be clear and I decided to go to the DPP's rally. The rally area was quite
crowded. It was as crowded as the KMT's rally, which won last year's local
elections. The excitement and joy of people in the rally area was quite
interesting.
As a result of the local elections
in 2018, the Green Party(DPP) lost the local elections. As a result of the
defeat, the DPP leader and Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-Wen resigned from party
leadership. But Tsai Ing-Wen, who withdrew her resignation, won this
year's general elections.
With the results, the KMT candidate Han Kuo-yu made his
speech first. About an hour later, Tsai Ing wen, the winner of the election,
made her speech. However, the first thing that caught my attention during this
speech was that Tsai Ing Wen spoke quite calmly and seriously. Unlike Ing Wen,
DPP sympathizers were extremely happy.
In her speech, Ing wen praised Taiwan's democracy and stated
that relations with China will continue in the same way.
TWITTER ANALYSIS
2000 English tweets about Taiwanese general elections
between the January 1st and January 20th were examined with R computer program.
First, the most commonly used words were found in these 2000 tweets. The words
Economy, Growth, Hong Kong Protests, independence and victory are the most used
words in 2000 tweets.
Most of the tweets are positive about Ing-Wen and DPP's
victory.
Words like freedom, peaceful, democracy, growth and hope are
the most commonly used positive words. Words such as infrared, protest, fight
and Xi Jinping are the most commonly used negative words.
Secondly, sentiment
analysis of these 2000 tweets was analyzed. The highest sentiment in these tweets is trust. Then comes
anticipation and fear.
Words like president, democracy, freedom, integrity, alliance
and brilliant are the words with the highest trust sentiment. Words like young,
vote, result and prevention are the words with the highest sense of
anticipation. Words like Fight, Interfere, and Xi Jinping are the words with
the highest sense of fear.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, DPP sympathizers were very happy and hopeful
at the DPP rally. Twitter analysis results gave similar results.
However, despite all this happiness and anticipation, it is
a matter of curiosity how China-Taiwan relations and Ing-Wen's attitude towards
China will change and shape.
