2016 Chinese legislative election

 

2016 Chinese legislative election

10 January 2016
All 870 seats in the Legislative Yuan 436 seats needed for a majority
Registered	1,502,399,764 (October 2015)
Majority party Minority party Third party   Leader Gao Weihan Tang Zhonglin Dou Zhecheng Party Kuomintang Democratic Progressive Social Democratic Leader since 2001 2014 2011 Last election 446 153 175 Seats won 451 188 122 Seat change ▲5 ▲35 ▼53 Percentage 57% 17% 12%   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Yang Zongwu Lin Renjian Ma Xianghua Party Communist Democratic Socialists Green Leader since 2007 2015 2013 Last election 31 None None Seats won 29 23 23 Seat change ▼2 ▲23 ▲23 Popular vote 4% 3% 3%
Premier before election Wu Kaiping KMT Elected Premier Zhao Meijin KMT

The 2016 Chinese legislative election took place on 10 January 2016 for all 870 seats of the 4th Legislative Yuan. The Nationalist Party (KMT) won with a landslide majority of 57% of the popular vote, expanding its majority as it had also previously won 53% in the 2011 election. In total it had a gain of 5 seats, having under performed in several constituencies, but overall solidified its control of the parliament. The KMT has been the ruling party in China since 2001.

While the KMT maintained its majority, commentators noted that newer opposition liberal and populist parties made significant gains in the election as well, at the expense of the two other traditional opposition parties. The election was seen by many as a referendum on the leadership of President Ren Longyun, since the start of the crisis with the West in 2014 with the annexation of Rehe Province by the Republic of China.

Besides the KMT, other notable parties include the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which expanded its share of the seats in the Legislative Yuan by an even greater amount, 35 seats. It is the biggest opposition party to the Nationalists traditionally, running on a more liberal and progressive platform. The China Social Democratic Party (CSDP) came in third as it usually has been in Chinese elections since 2001, and it has usually been more willing to work with the KMT's legislative agenda and is generally more conservative than the DPP. It lost a significant amount of seats, to both the DPP and other, newer parties, losing 53 seats. Three new parties that did not participate before, the Democratic Party of Socialists, the Green Party, and the New Party, entered the parliament for the first time. The Chinese Landonist Party, which has been a minor party since the end of Landonism in China, had a minor loss of 2 seats. Other minor parties suffered losses as well.

The legislative election took place about six months before the 2016 Chinese presidential election. In late 2015 it was decided to hold the legislative election ahead of schedule in January, instead of the originally planned date of April 2016 or simultaneously with the presidential election in June.

Background

The 2016 legislative election was moved ahead of schedule to January, from the original date of April 2016. There were also members of the Legislative Yuan from the Nationalists and the CSDP who proposed holding the election simultaneously with the presidential election, scheduled for June 2016. However, ultimately in September 2015 the parliament agreed in a majority vote to move the election to January, as proposed by President Ren Longyun.

This was the first Chinese parliamentary election in which citizens of the Rehe province voted. The region, having been annexed from Manchuria in 2014, had caused a diplomatic crisis and sanctions being imposed on China by certain Anglo-American and European countries. This was the biggest dispute between China and the West at the time, with foreign policy and President Ren's leadership being a major election issue. Therefore election was largely seen as a referendum on the Nationalists and President Ren's 16-year long rule in the Republic of China. In Rehe province itself, during the election it was noted that turnout was higher than the national average and the KMT won by a landslide there.

However, opposition parties made large gains as well, namely the Democratic Progressives. Since 2011, the party had increased its activism, investigations into corruption of different politicians, and associates in the inner circle of President Ren. The former lawyer and investigative journalist Tang Zhonglin had become the leader of the party in July 2014, replacing the long time opposition activist Yang Jiajun. He made an unprecedented effort to open campaign offices across China and campaigned in different provinces, more so than any other party except some of the smaller newly created populist parties, which did the same. The DPP also had victories from 2014 to 2016 in different provincial and local elections. These were given as a large part of the reason for the DPP's major gains.

Other parties also took part in the election. The environmentalist Green Party, created in 2013, participated in the election and mainly ran on solving the country's environmental problems, for which the blamed the KMT. The Democratic Party of Socialists, a populist party that had a platform of Chinese nationalism combined with social democratic policies, also called out the KMT for becoming the party of corrupt oligarchs and attacked the Nationalists from the right. The New Party, a centrist-populist party, also emerged.

Electoral system

Under the current Chinese election laws, the Legislative Yuan is elected for five years in a system of parallel voting, with half of the seats (435 seats) elected using first-past-the-post voting in single-member constituencies, and the other 435 elected using party-list proportional representation. A candidate can only run with a nomination from a political party. The party list is divided into the national and regional lists.

Results

Party		Party list				Constituency			Total result
		Votes	%	±pp	Seats	Votes	%	Seats	Seats	+/–
	Nationalist Party		57%		248		47%	203	451	▲5
	Democratic Progressive Party		17%		74		26%	114	188	▲35
	China Social Democratic Party		12%		53		16%	69	122	▼53
	Chinese Landonist Party		4%		17		3%	12	29	▼2
	Democratic Party of Socialists		3%		13		2%	10	23	▲23
	Green Party		3%		13		2%	10	23	▲23
	New Party		2%		9		2%	9	18	▲18
	Peasant Party		1%		4		1%	4	8	▼27
	Royalist Party		1%		4		1%	4	8	▼22
	Total		100%		435		100%	435	870

By province

Province	Total seats	Results
		KMT	DPP	CSDP	GP	RP	PP	CLP	NP	DPS
Anhui	20	14	4	2	0	0	0	0	0	0
Fujian	24	10	2	8	1	1	1	0	1	0
Gansu	5	3	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
Guangdong	50	24	15	8	0	0	1	1	1	0
Guangxi	12	6	3	2	1	0	0	0	0	0
Guizhou	8	4	1	2	0	0	0	1	0	0
Henan	37	14	12	4	0	0	1	0	2	4
Hubei	20	6	7	5	1	0	0	0	1	0
Hunan	24	15	6	1	0	0	1	0	0	1
Inner Mongolia	5	2	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Jiangsu	31	8	5	16	0	0	1	1	0	0
Jiangxi	12	6	2	1	1	0	0	2	0	0
Outer Mongolia	3	0	2	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
Qinghai	5	4	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
Rehe	10	8	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	1
Shanxi	9	6	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Shaanxi	9	4	5	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Shandong	39	23	6	6	2	1	0	0	1	0
Sichuan	47	19	15	6	2	1	0	2	1	1
Tibet	4	0	3	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
Xinjiang	5	1	2	1	1	0	0	0	0	0
Yunnan	12	6	3	0	0	0	0	1	1	1
Zhejiang	20	9	8	1	0	1	0	1	0	0
Zhili	24	11	6	2	1	0	0	1	1	2

Aftermath

With the overwhelming KMT victory, the President Ren Longyun was able to continue to form a government and he considered it a mandate for his continued policies.