It was a landslide victory for the first female president of Taiwan. In fact, Tsai Ing-wen after winning this historic victory vowed that she would build a new era in Taiwan politics. In fact, this victory was seen as a further strain on the relationship of the country with China.
Tsai Ing-wen won an unassailable lead over her rivals, even the closest one Eric Chu who was from the Nationalist KMT party.
In her address, she thanked the people for helping the DPP to win and for trusting them to govern Taiwan. Eric Chu in his speech conceded defeat and told his supporters that his party had failed the expectations and was let down by the voters.
When Tsai won the election, there were more than 20,000 supporters of the DPP who gathered in Taipei outside the headquarters of the party, and they shouted slogans like we are making history.
Tsai said that what she realized was that it was not only an election victory. It was about the people wanting to see the government more willing to hear them and their problems. She believed it was about accountability as well as transparency and having a government which would lead them and takes care of the needs of the people. It was the people who believed that the government would protect the sovereignty of the country.
Four years earlier, she lost out on being president by a narrow margin, and she even considered returning to academics before she took the plunge again.
As per the analysts, the people were dissatisfied with the KMT President Ma Ying-jeou, and so they voted her to power. This was because the economy was drastically weakened. Her success came after the rule of the KMT for eight years as people felt that the ordinary ones saw no improvement in their lives with the previous government.