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People First Party (Taiwan)

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People First Party (Taiwan)

The People First Party (PFP, Chinese: 親民; pinyin: Qīnmín Dǎng; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Chhin-bîn-tóng) is a centrist to centre-right political party in Taiwan.

The party was founded by James Soong in March 2000 after his failed independent presidential bid earlier in the March 2000 presidential election; Soong was previously expelled from the Kuomintang after launching an independent bid. In the 2001 legislative election, it became the third-largest party in the Legislative Yuan. In the 2004 presidential election, the KMT-PFP joint ticket of Lien Chan and James Soong narrowly lost to President Chen Shui-bian. In the 2008 legislative election, the party lost all but one of its seats, though it rebounded to three seats in the 2012 legislative election.

Soong ran again in the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections, gathering 2.77% and 12.84% of the vote respectively. In 2020, Soong announced his last presidential bid; he lost the election with a vote share of 4.26%. In the concurrent 2020 legislative election, the PFP lost all of its seats in the Legislative Yuan.

The PFP was founded by James Soong and his supporters after his failed independent bid for the presidency in 2000. Soong was previously a member of the Kuomintang but was expelled from the party after he announced an independent presidential bid. Soong himself is the chairman, and dominates much of its politics. The name of the party, People First (親民), has Confucian connotations.

The party maintains a close but tense relationship with the Kuomintang (KMT) as part of the pan-blue coalition. However, since PFP had, like the New Party, grown out of the KMT, the two parties had to compete for the same set of voters. This dynamic in which both the KMT and PFP must simultaneously compete and cooperate with each other has led to complex and interesting politics.

In several notable cases, this has led to situations in which both parties have run candidates, but close to the election the party with the less popular candidate unofficially dropped out of the race. This in turn has led to some notable situations when either the PFP or the KMT has campaigned against its own candidate, which has led to intra-party resentment.

To avoid a repeat of this effect, which led to the election of Democratic Progressive Party candidate Chen Shui-bian to the presidency in 2000 by a low share of votes, Chairman Soong ran as vice-president on KMT Chairman Lien Chan's presidential ticket in the 2004 presidential election.

After his defeat in the Taipei mayoral elections held on 9 December 2006, Soong announced that he would retire from politics. At this point, with no clear goals, the PFP faced an uncertain future, and considered merging with the Kuomintang (KMT). After much negotiation, the PFP and the KMT did not merge.

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