Saturday's presidential election had everything. The campaign had divisive and vilifying rhetoric. On the afternoon before the election, the incumbent president and vice-president were shot while campaigning. The campaign featured two referendum questions, which had China raving. The winner defeated the loser by 29,518 votes of 12.9 million cast that were valid. And,
to top it off, the loser proved he lacked leadership by challenging the result without providing any evidence of fraud.
Lien Chan's (連戰) post-election statement proved he lacks the competency to be president. He reacted before the Central Election Commission announced the election results, calling the election unfair. Rather than simply saying the election was close and requesting a recount, he launched into questioning the horrific shooting of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮). Then he and his running mate, James Soong (宋楚瑜), hung around the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Central Headquarters, where they did nothing to induce calmness among their supporters.
Lien's imputation that the assassination attempt was campaign trickery was ironic to hear for those with long memories in Taiwan. Lien and Soong participated in high government and party positions during the authoritarian period and it was during these periods that the family of Lin I-hsiung (林義雄) was killed, Professor Chen Wen-cheng (陳文成) "fell" to his death, the writer Jiang Nan (江南) murdered in the US and Wu Shu-chen (吳淑珍), President Chen's wife, repeatedly hit by a truck and left a paraplegic. We know, thanks to the FBI, that Taiwan's security agencies committed Jiang Nan's killing in the US and the inability to solve the other murders, even after so long, suggests security agency involvement. If trickery was involved in the recent assassination attempts then Lien and Soong are the more likely perpetrators.
Lien and Soong also conducted an extremely dirty campaign, aided by the pro-blue media. The lies and accusations just kept coming. Lien and Soong told a foreign press conference that the campaign was extremely dirty and that they hoped foreign journalists would know by the end of the press conference who was committing this vilification. Yes, President Chen was not a "pure angel" -- his allusion to Lien Chan beating his wife was unnecessary and degrading. But, at the end of the press conference, the foreign press knew the source of the filth was Lien and Soong themselves.
What of the future? The court process will take place quickly and, unless Lien and Soong can prove the existence of skulduggery, President Chen and Vice-President Lu will have their re-election confirmed. In any case, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has now achieved a true majority of votes, no matter how slim. This is a significant increase from 39.3 percent in the 2000 presidential election and an improvement on the 2001 legislative election. For the legislative election this year, the DPP and the Taiwan Solidarity Union will have to work together to nominate a slate that can win a majority of seats, which would improve government stability.
Hopefully, the dynamics in the KMT will force Lien and Soong from the political stage. At least some KMT supporters considered voting for Chen to help clear the stage of these "yesterday's men." Both have long records of government corruption and neither has shown evidence of any understanding of democracy either in the KMT or in government.
This would allow the Taiwanese members, such as Legislative Yuan Speaker Wang Jin-pyng, and the younger Mainlander leaders such as Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
50s or younger, have much more enlightened views of Taiwan and the world. Ideally, they would work closely with the second Chen administration to build a cooperative "win-win" situation in which all would benefit.
China and constitutional reform remain two key issues for the future. China must learn to deal with the reality of Taiwan. This is now an island where "Taiwan identity" has grown
considerably at the expense of "China identity," which has declined precipitously over the past decade. China, however, has its own political problems and it may be that Chinese political forces will hamstring the Hu Jintao (
Constitutional reform is also important. The current Constitution was written in the late 1940s for a dictatorship of half a billion people. Some two-thirds of the Constitution's articles require revision to suit a democracy
of 23 million people. Chen has declared such a new constitution would not change the national name, flag or anthem. That Lien Chan called for a new constitution even faster than Chen proposed (shortly after calling Chen's proposal "boring") indicates that the people in Taiwan widely seek such change.
A second Chen administration will also allow political reform to continue. The president can only appoint two or three people to each ministry, so the reform process has been slow. Many more people are beginning to understand the logic of these reforms.
The second Chen administration is a bonus for Taiwan. The old political leaders will leave the stage and a new Taiwan will continue to emerge. President Chen and his fellow leaders will need to work constructively and
carefully to keep all interested parties, including foreign governments, on side. But the people
of Taiwan, and the people of the Asia-Pacific region, will all benefit from Taiwan's continuing democratic development.
Bruce Jacobs is Professor of Asian Languages and Studies and Director of the Taiwan Research Unit at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
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