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Taipei mayor seen as presidential hopeful
By Willy Wo-Lap Lam
(CNN) -- Newly re-elected Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou has emerged as the best -- if not only -- candidate that opposition parties in Taiwan can muster for defeating President Chen Shui-bian next year. Saturday's polls for the mayors and legislative assemblies of Taipei and Kaohsiung were seen as a warm-up for presidential elections scheduled for early 2004. And within hours of Ma's landslide re-election, he was touted by fellow members of the Kuomintang (KMT) as probably the only person who has a chance to beat the charismatic Chen, also Chairman of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Ma garnered 873,000 or 64.1 percent of the votes, while his opponent, former DPP legislator Lee Ying-yuan could barely secure 35.9 percent of the ballots. Compared to four years ago, when challenger Ma defeated then incumbent mayor Chen, the KMT had gained more than 100,000 -- and the DPP lost -- nearly 200,000 ballots. A photogenic, Harvard-trained lawyer, Ma is seen as the only "mainlander" KMT politician who has broad appeal among native-born Taiwanese, who account for around 85 percent of the population. This is despite the fact that Ma, 52, still defers to KMT elders such as Chairman Lien Chan, who is expected to run again despite his humiliating defeat to Chen during the last presidential polls in 2000. When asked about whether he was interested in seeking the top job, Ma said on Saturday night that "at this stage, I don't have any other plans [than being mayor]." However, KMT insiders said there was a widespread support particularly among young and middle-aged party members for Ma, a former Justice Minister with a Mr Clean image, to run. An opinion survey published Sunday by the mass-circulation United Daily News said Ma would clobber Chen by a 56 percent versus 28 percent margin in a presidential election. Two other high-profile would-be candidates, the chairmen of the KMT and the PFP, respectively Lien and James Soong, would also beat Chen next year if they were running on a joint ticket -- though the margin of victory was much smaller. Yet, the UDN poll said, if it became a three-way battle among Chen, Lien and Soong -- which was similar to the 2000 elections -- Chen would still triumph. Political analysts said owing to long-standing jealousy and mutual distrust, it was unlikely that Lien and Soong could agree to run on the same ticket. They said a major reason why Huang Jun-ying, who ran against incumbent Kaohsiung mayor Frank Hsieh lost on Saturday was because Lien and Soong had until the eleventh hour failed to agree on a joint candidate. It was not until late last month that Soong threw his support behind the KMT candidate, who was defeated by a margin of less than 4 percent. The analysts said there were indications Ma was the candidate that senior DPP politicians and their advisers were most afraid of. Soon after election results were out on Saturday, DPP Secretary-General Chang Chun-hsiung was asked about the prospects of Ma as a presidential candidate. Chang, a former premier, would only say: "My advice to Ma is he had better exercise caution and avoid haste in running for president." Diplomatic analysts in Taipei said Ma could win the support of the business community because of the KMT's more flexible approach to mainland-related issues such as direct air and shipping flights. Since Chen took over as president in May 2000, Beijing has consistently refused to hold talks with the DPP on grounds that Chen was seeking "creeping independence."
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