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Note: This article represents the view of the author and not the University of Hong Kong.

Following the inauguration ceremony of the President in Taiwan last week, plus the fact that the re-counting of votes seemingly will not change the result, the arguments arising from the presidential election in Taiwan will come to an end soon. In the past two months, the author has shared his observations on the March 20 election with different people in different occasions. The author would like to summarize them here.

Since a well-developed and professional public opinion survey mechanism is an important element in any democratic society, therefore, while the author has been to Taiwan to observe the elections there for many years, he has always kept an eye on the development of the public opinion survey in Taiwan. After many years' on-the-spot observation and interviews, the author has come to a conclusion: On the surface, the democratic system in Taiwan has developed rapidly, yet, the support mechanisms within are incomplete and they are far away from the ideal Chinese democratic society.

The author would first like to share with all of you an incident during the March 20 election. Five days before the election, TVBS announced that they would conduct the first exit poll of the presidential election in Taiwan on the election day, which is familiar to Hong Kong people. The voting time in Taiwan was 8:00 am to 4:00 pm. TVBS' promotion was like this, "On March 20 at 4:01pm, our exit poll will tell you who would win the presidential election".

In order to increase the credibility of the survey, the television station has invited Warren Mitofsky, an exit poll expert in America, to be responsible for the design of the sampling, as well as the off-shore data analysis on the election day. Moreover, the television station has invited 8 academics in political surveys from 6 universities in Taiwan to offer comments on the design of the questionnaire, and to work together to recruit 350 student interviewers. The aim was to have a random survey outside the 150 polling stations on 16,500 electorates who have voted, in order to understand their voting behaviour and reasons behind.

Since there was no precedent, after TVBS announced its plan, pressure came from different sides, including the urge from the government's Central Election Commission. However, since the operation and the release of the survey were not illegal, the television station refused to change their plan.

What is interesting is that, while other television stations have questioned TVBS at first, they all soon announced they would conduct similar surveys, which included ETTV's "enhanced exit poll" and FTV's "dynamic instant poll". However, since other television stations did not have enough time for preparation, what they in fact conducted were telephone surveys on the election day but not exit polls. They will not be discussed here.

On the election day, apart from the on-the-spot observation on the operation of the exit poll, the author also eagerly waited for the result announcement on the street at 4 pm sharp. Finally, after 5:15pm, the news came. TVBS announced that the anticipated ratio of votes obtained by the two camps were 53 to 47, but did not announce who was in the lead. Previously, ETTV has also utilized a very complicated method to announce that the votes obtained by the two camps would have an anticipated difference from 0.3 million to 0.6 million, that was around 3%, but did not announce who was in the lead either. Also, as far as the author knows, FTV never mentioned anything about their "dynamic instant poll" again.

Later on, the fact proved that the television stations were wrong. The subsequent report from TVBS explained the discrepancies might arise due to the following three reasons: (1) Interviewers had to conduct the random sampling 30 meters away from the polling stations. This affected the accuracy of the sampling and the quality of the interview. (2) The refusal rate was as high as 40%, "Since the Executive Yuan openly expressed their worries over the exit poll before the election, as well as according to the on-the-spot observation of the interviewers, it was very likely that there was a relatively higher refusal rate among those voters supporting for President Chan Shui-bian." (3) The ratio of the invalid votes was higher than the previous years' and this would affect the anticipated result. The author recently brought up this topic with Warren Mitofsky in America. He thought that there might be some problems arising from the quality control of the exit poll.

The development of exit poll in Taiwan has in fact revealed several problems regarding the media and the public opinion survey mechanism in Taiwan. First, the media in Taiwan is not neutral enough as they always have their stance in elections. Therefore, the news report and the public opinion surveys of the media in Taiwan should only be regarded as a kind of political propaganda which lacks credibility. If there is really discrepancy in the response of TVBS' exit poll, very likely, the above reason accounts for this. In other words, those people who suspect TVBS has a political stance are probably unwilling to respond to their opinion surveys. Of course, the same problem applies to the other mass media's election surveys as well.

Moreover, the academics in Taiwan also have their stance in elections. As a result, they cannot provide a credible middle force to the society. Taiwanese academics generally enjoy to further their career in the government sector. In order to climb the ladder, they have to stay close to the political parties in advance. As a result, there are rarely voices demanding or defending the independence of speech.

What is even worse is that Taiwan lacks a powerful but politically neutral civil service. In the executive and law-enforcement agencies, political considerations are always more important than the freedom of speech. Therefore, when some political parties criticize that the exit poll will influence the election result, the Central Election Commission also has to agree. In Taiwan, publication of pre-election opinion surveys is banned throughout the 10 days before presidential elections. This is a very out-dated practice in a democratic society. Whenever the author discussed this matter with academics and experts in Taiwan, they would sigh and complain that opinion surveys in Taiwan lack credibility.

So we have a situation that the mainstream media in Taiwan lacks credibility, opinion surveys are regarded as tools for propaganda, and the academic sector is unable to maintain its own independence. Together with the blending of party politics with government administration, there is in fact a serious lack of independent middle force in Taiwan society. This is not good to the democratic development in Taiwan.

Since there is no middle force in Taiwan society, the election project will always resort to the emotions and ethnic cleavages of the people. As the concept of the rule of law is relatively weak in Taiwan society, problems such as bribery, election gambling, triad money and political donation arise accordingly. To the author, the greatest misfortune of March 20 election is that it has sharpened ethnic cleavages within Taiwan, and has placed all the chips of Taiwan's democratic development on the question of unity and independence. Take an example, the referendum itself is a very common and useful mechanism in a democratic society. If it is utilized appropriately, the referendum can in fact resolve huge controversies peacefully and maintain social cohesion. However, the March 20 referendum basically is just a propaganda campaign which results in polarization of the society. A very good democratic mechanism has thus been wasted.

Of course Hong Kong people have no right to tell Taiwan people how to run themselves. Yet, the author always believes that, there should be more exchanges across the Strait and among the three places. Hong Kong, under "one country, two systems", may not be as democratic as Taiwan. However, we have freedom, rule of law, corruption-free system and still powerful professional forces. Maybe Taiwan people should learn from us in these aspects.

It is inevitable that Taiwan society will continue to localize, which is a normal phenomenon in the development of any society. In the author's view, there is no inherent contradiction between unification and localization. The world now emphasizes multi-cultural and multi-directional communication. If the Chinese race continues to capitalize on our immense cultural influence heritage, and face the new global culture and order with pride and dignity, the way to resolve the cross-strait dispute will come one day.