Zhongli ― Events of an Election Night, 1977

In front of this town's police station, in the autumn of 1977, on the night of an election, a great crowd gathered. At that time, Taiwan lived under martial law, and politics was almost entirely monopolized by the Kuomintang. In that year's local elections, the contest for the position of Taoyuan County Magistrate was fought by Hsu Hsin-liang, who ran as a candidate after leaving the Kuomintang. On the day of voting, at a polling station in Zhongli, suspicions spread that ballots were being handled fraudulently. Angry residents surrounded the police station, and before long the disturbance grew, and the building was set on fire. This became known as the Zhongli Incident. In the end, Hsu Hsin-liang won the election. This incident is regarded as one of the turning points in the rise of political forces outside the Kuomintang — the so-called "tangwai" (outside-the-party) movement — and is often spoken of as one of the beginnings of the current that would eventually lead to democratization. At the same time, there are also those who view it as violent unrest, and opinions remain divided over how the authorities responded. It would be nineteen years later, in 1996, before Taiwan's president was chosen through direct election by the voters themselves. The night this town's people fought so fiercely over the fate of a single ballot was one of the gateways into that long journey.