Wednesday, April 27, 2011

China policy, economy at heart of Taiwan's presidential dogfight

Taipei, April 27 (CNA) The nine-month race for Taiwan's presidency unofficially began on Wednesday, with scholars and observers agreeing that China policy, the economy and voters in central Taiwan hold the key to victory.

Opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen was named the winner of her party's presidential primary on Wednesday, setting up a battle between her and President Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang for Taiwan's top political office.

Scholars see the election, which will be held in January 2012, as "too close to call" but contended that the two candidates' policies toward China could determine the outcome.

Ma, who won his first term in a landslide victory in 2008 and has forged closer ties with China to reduce cross-Taiwan Strait tensions, is expected to take the initiative on the issue by attacking the DPP, which has been criticized for its strong anti-China position, said Chen Chao-chien, a political scientist at Ming Chuan University.

Tsai, 54, has been "ambiguous" in previous comments on China policy and is expected to stick with the strategy because she does not want to "scare away" independent voters, who have had doubts about the party's hawkish position in the past, Chen said.

Meanwhile, Tsai is expected to be the aggressor on the economy, an issue that Ma could find very difficult to defend, given that unemployment, income inequality and inflation are still major concerns for many voters despite booming trade with China, he argued.

"It's almost guaranteed that both candidates will try to leverage their advantages and avoid their disadvantages, " he said.

Another factor at play, Chen said, was the decision to hold Taiwan's presidential and legislative elections together for the first time in history, after having been held at least three months apart in the past.

Combining the elections will favor the 60-year-old Ma, who also serves as KMT chairman, because legislative candidates will have to appeal to voters to cast ballots for themselves and Ma at the same time, Chen said.

But Ma cannot expect as easy a victory as he scored in 2008 when he won by more than 2 million votes, because Tsai is at least as popular -- if not more popular than -- Ma among urban residents, women and young people, voters considered to be strong Ma backers in the past.

With northern Taiwan voters traditionally favoring the KMT and southern Taiwan strongly behind the DPP stronghold, election results in central Taiwan "will literally be the tie-breaker in the election," Chen said.

Wang Yeh-li, a political scientist at National Taiwan University, shared similar views, saying that China policy and the economy will be the main issues during the presidential campaign.

Tsai managed to touch on her China policy in platform presentations during the DPP primary but did not present concrete policies for voters to understand the direction in which she intended to take Taiwan, Wang said.

"She is not likely to be able to maintain her ambiguous strategy in the entire campaign, " he said.

While Tsai's nomination as the first female presidential candidate was a milestone, Wang argued that Taiwan's voters might not be ready for a female president "if voters in the United States were not ready to accept one."

Wang suspected that the combined election favored the KMT, noting that turnout rates of the past two legislative elections were 58 and 59 percent respectively while the turnout rate of a presidential election usually surpassed 80 percent.

"We won't be able to tell in advance how these 20 percent of voters cast their votes, " he said.

The DPP will have to immediately tackle the challenge of uniting the party after Tsai's narrow victory over former Premier Su Tseng-chang in the party's primary, which was determined by opinion polls.

Su said previously he would not serve as a vice presidential candidate if he lost the primary but called for supporters to back Tsai in his concession speech Wednesday afternoon.

The DPP, which has insisted the party would need to be unified to win the 2012 presidential race, and its supporters are concerned that the Tsai campaign will suffer if it fails to garner support from Su and his backers.

DPP legislators have suggested that Su run in the legislative elections and vie to become the legislative speaker so that the party will be more competitive in the presidential and legislative races. (By Chris Wang) enditem/ls