Local elections were held in Taiwan on 21 April 1957, the third nation-wide elections in post-war Taiwan, electing all 21 mayors of cities and magistrates of counties with a three-year tenure. Fuchien Province, then under military administration, was not up for election. Election for Provisional Taiwan Provincial Council was held alongside the local elections to elect 66 councillors.
The ruling Kuomintang (or nationalist, KMT) retained control of 20 administrative divisions, flipping two from Tangwai movement, leaving the opposition with Tainan City only after defeating the nationalist candidate. Widespread election frauds were reported, while the struggle between local factions in different regions continued.
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.
Seeking re-election, Mayor Henry Kao stood against KMT-nominated Huang Chi-jui (黃啟瑞). According to students of National Taiwan Normal University, only Huang was invited to give a speech.[2]
During vote counting, multiple electricity outage fueled suspicions over election fraud, and the number of invalid ballots reached 8,000, nearly all were in favour of Kao.[3]
As a result, Huang captured the capital for the ruling party with around 59% of valid votes. Kao responded with "gentleman doesn't care about results as justice shall prevail", "I rather lose with honour than win with disgrace".[4]
After incumbent magistrate Chu Sheng-chi (朱盛淇) supported rival of the Kuomintang in 1955 election for Speaker of the County Council, Chu was not nominated by the party for re-election.
Lin He-nien (林鶴年), former Taichung Magistrate, was again nominated by the Kuomintang. Clashes between local factions continued, with "Lin faction" supporting Lin and "Chen faction" supporting Yang Chi-chen (楊基振) from Tangwai.
Opposition accused election frauds as strongholds of Yang experienced electricity outrage at night during vote counting, leaving polling stations with staff only.[9]
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.
Some of Shih's supporters were arrested during election rally, angering residents to protest outside the police station, while Kuomintang smeared Shih with personal attacks. On the election day, frauds such as blackouts and village chiefs voting on behalf of villagers that were reported in last election occurred again. Eventually Shih only received around 42% of votes, lower than the expected 140,000 and was defeated.[10]
Wang Yin-kuei (王吟貴), ex-speaker of Yunlin County Council, ran for Young China Party and as a Tangwai candidate, fighting against Lin Chin-sheng, nominated by the KMT to stage a political comeback. As Wang was more popular than Lin, the local party announced from the local administration that towns with high turnout and support rate for Lin would receive government subsidies. The local KMT also launched smearing campaign against the rivalry, claiming Wang "stirred troubles", "divided the community", and "publicly assaulted the governance".[12] The defamatory speeches and vote-buying acts, although suspected of breaking election laws, were not penalised by the authorities.
On the election day, it was reported that staff at polling station marked the ballot paper in favour of Lin on behalf of a blind despite the elector insisted on voting for Wang.[3] Lin eventually defeated Wang by a landslide.
In Tainan City, Yeh Ting-kuei (葉廷珪) completed a political revenge, being elected to the mayorship again and as the only independent winner of this election after leaving the KMT before the election. His friendliness to grassroot community is believed the crucial factor of his victory.[13]
With the unresolved disputes between two powerful local factions, Kuomintang nominated Chen Chi-hsing (陳皆興), an obscure councillor as the candidate. The two factions therefore turned to Yu Teng-fa, who was convinced to prevent an uncontested election.[15]
Irregularities were reported after around 200 voters of one constituency discovered their ballots had been cast by others, who in turn demanded explanation despite police's threats. Results revealed that only two constituents out of 1,063 did not vote. Yu was also defeated unexpectedly.[9]
Following the defeat, Yu filed petition to dispute the election results, which was obstructed by agents of KMT as voters attempted to testify at court. Officials at polling stations were accused by Yu of rigging the election by fingerprinting on the electoral roll "like playing the piano" to get the ballot papers.[16] Nevertheless, the court only convicted two staff members and decided not to charge the others.[15] The court further rejected annulling the results on the basis that "one polling station is not enough to impact the election result".[9] The verdict effectively blocked any vote re-count proposed by Tangwai in the next thirty years. Kuomintang, therefore, was mocked by the public when insisting elections were "honest, fair, and open" for "flagrant in vote-rigging, transparent in ballot-stuffing, and impartial in vote-buying".[15]
Meanwhile, in Kaohsiung City, the Kuomintang was divided between sending incumbent mayor Hsieh Cheng-chiang (謝掙強) and City Council Speaker Chen Wu-chang (陳武璋). Chen at last secured party nomination. For the Tangwai camp, two leading potential candidates reached an agreement, with Yang Chin-hu (楊金虎), delegate of National Assembly, running in mayoral election with CDSP's nomination,[18] while Li Yuan-chan (李源棧), a City Councillor, compete for the seat in Taiwan Provincial Council. With the support from most of the local factions, Chan easily defeated Yang.[19]
