As per the 1993 Constitutional Amendment, the Presidential Election of 2002 would go to a second round. Lien Chan was confident in his ability to win, and the KMT put nearly all of their focus on winning the legislative and gubernatorial runoff elections. Li Ao was advised by some in his party to do the same, but he refused. He claimed that anything could happen in a month, and he campaigned hard. Nevertheless, he would need to overcome a 20-point polling gap. Unlike in 1996, none of the other parties encouraged their voters to vote for Li Ao in the runoff (though many of them would anyway). Lin Yang-kang, Li’s Vice-President, encouraged China Youth Party voters to vote KMT in races where the CYP candidate did not make it to the runoff (this was essentially an endorsement of Lien Chan). As Lien and Lin won a combined 54.5% of the vote in the first round, the results seemed to be a forgone conclusion.
Li Ao was waiting for some sort of crisis that could give him a chance at victory. In early April, the Iraq-Iran conflict erupted into all-out war. Lien Chan said that China would seek to broker peace between the two sides, while Li Ao took an explicit pro-Iraq stance. But the resulting increase in gas prices was not enough to change the outcome of the election. As polls closed in the Northeast, Li’s strongest region in all his presidential campaigns, Lien Chan was in the lead. The race was called for Lien by every news network in China in less than an hour. Lien Chan won over 60% of the vote. Li Ao only won the provinces of Chahar, Xingan, Heilongjiang, and Songjiang.
Lien Chan/James Soong: 299,964,914 votes (61.1%)
Li Ao/Xu Qinxian: 190,976,026 votes (38.9%)
Li Ao gave a speech thanking his supporters, and once again hinted at a future campaign for the Presidency. But half of the people who voted for Li in the second round, because they didn’t like the KMT, and were uninterested in a fourth Li Ao presidential campaign. Meanwhile, Lien Chan would appoint CYP members to government positions, signaling a new era of blue-yellow cooperation. The KMT only won a narrow majority in the Legislative Yuan and the National Assembly, so having the support of the CYP was useful. Though the CDSP did not make it to the second round, it did come in second place in both chambers. The CDSP would establish itself as the main opposition to the KMT in Lien Chan’s second term.
