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18 Taiwan Development Perspectives 2009 ried woman whom he “recognized” as a daughter. Such recognition is still quite common in China as well as in Taiwan. The elder Ma’s relationship to the woman is like a godfather to his goddaughter in the Christendom. But in China’s extended family system, a recognized daughter is considered to have the same status as a natural daughter and an affair between the elder Ma and his recognized daughter might be regarded as incest. Then Ma’s wife, Christine Chou, was alleged to have stolen newspapers while working as an assistant at the Harvard-Yenching Library at Cambridge, Massachusetts. She was with Ma, while he was studying at Harvard towards his S.J. D. The allegation was made by a spin doctor of Frank Hsieh, who could not substantiate the charges. The sole purpose seems to tell voters they might have a first lady with a theft record, if Ma were elected. Ma’s sister was working as a schoolmaster in Beijing and Ma was accused of trying to help her school get accredited in Taiwan. His daughter was accused of carrying an American passport. Finally, it was Frank Hsieh himself who challenged Ma in open TV debates to produce evidence that he had given up his U.S. permanent resident card. Hsieh never let go of Ma, who said again and again the “green card” he had once had was given up on return to Taiwan from the United States in 1984. Ma produced his Taiwan passports where American visas were stamped, arguing that no such visas could be granted a permanent resident in the United States. That, however, was an inane issue. The election law in Taiwan only disqualifies candidates who have foreign citizenship. Nonetheless, Hsieh had the Central Election Commission request information on Ma’s permanent resident card from the U.S. immigration authorities. No such information could be made available for protection of privacy. In the end, a former director of the American Institute in Taiwan, who happened to be in Taipei on the election eve, attested to the Ma argument. Hsieh raised no issues in the presidential campaign. He just attacked Ma for proposing a common market across the Taiwan Strait. The Democratic Progressive Party candidate called it a “one China common market,” a blueprint for surrendering Taiwan to China. He also demanded Ma produce evidence that he gave up his U.S. permanent resident card. A holder of the card might flee Taiwan and therefore not loyal to the country, Hsieh charged. Ma was on the defensive, but promised a corruption-free, clean government, if he were elected. That appealed to swing voters who were sick and tired of government corruption in the past eight years. They trotted out in droves to teach the Democratic Progressive Party a hard lesson on March 22. Ma won a landslide victory in the presidential poll, restoring the Kuomintang to the governing role it had played for more than five decades before it was ousted by the Democratic Progressive Party in 2000. He garnered more than 7,658,724 of the 13,104,063 votes cast, 58.45 percent of the total, against 41.55 percent, or 5,445,239 votes, for Frank Hsieh. Turnout was 76.33 percent. Ma broke Lee Teng-hui’s record at 54 percent in 1996. Hsieh conceded defeat at once. President George W. Bush of the United States congratulated Ma for election. “Once again,” Bush said in a statement, “Taiwan has demonstrated the strength and vitality of its democracy. I also congratulate Mr. Ma Ying-jeou on his victory. I believe the election provides a fresh opportunity for both sides (of the Taiwan Strait) to reach out and engage one another in peacefully resolving their differences.” Ma’s victory was not easy. Hsieh’s negative campaign against him was staggering. But the largest handicap he had to overcome was his original sin of being born a Chinese mainlander. He was labeled as a China lover, who would sell out Taiwan and flee with the help of his American green card. Yet he was able to rout Hsieh, Taipei’s native-born favorite son who subtly made the last-minute emotional appeals to voters to choose anybody but a mainlander. Ma’s election proved that Taiwan’s Hoklo-Hakka majority are now by and large immunized against their February 28 Incident
Campaigns of 2008 and Beyond 19 trauma. Many people, at least most of Hsieh’s supporters, still cannot totally let bygones be bygones but their ranks are shrinking fast. Hsieh and President Chen seem oblivious of this reality. They thought they could continue to take advantage of the islander-mainlander feud to win elections. Gone, however, are those days. Democracy triumphed because voters, young and old, came out to elect the man who they believed was fittest to lead their country. Ma was better than Hsieh at one point. He was a man honest enough to apologize for whatever blunders or faux pas he or his Kuomintang leaders committed in the run-up to the election. Voters regarded his opponent as a politician, someone like President Chen, who did not step down when one million protesters marched in Taipei in the fall of 2006 to demand his resignation to take responsibility for a spate of scandals. Ma’s honesty convinced the people he would do what he could to usher in the change he had promised to deliver. The people needed hope for a change and he instilled that hope in them. Rampant government corruption, in fact, contributed singularly to Ma Ying-jeou’s election as president with the largest ever margin in Taiwan’s brief history as a democracy. Chen Shui-bian was deeply involved in graft and corruption in his second term. Aside from the Accountgate, he was accused of amassing a slush fund of more than US$100 million and laundering it. Many of the Democratic Progressive Party Cabinet ministers were arrested and tried for corruption. Some of them were convicted. Chen was arrested on November 12 on charges of forgery, corruption and money laundering. The arrest followed a Special Counsel investigation after he had to apologize in public for “doing what the law does not allow” on August 14 when a Kuomintang lawmaker charged him with stashing away at least US$22 million in two Swiss banks by citing an Egmont report on money laundering. During the investigation, former first lady Wu Shu-chen, who is standing trial for corruption in connection with the Accountgate, her son Chen Chih-chung and his wife Huang Jui-ching were found to have helped President Chen launder much more in Japan and the United States. Business tycoons, banking moguls in particular, poured millions of dollars into the hidden troves of the Chen family in order just to win favors in the controversial monet reform to halve the number of holding companies. Still under detention, Chen started a brief hunger strike to claim innocence and protest what he called political persecution against him. Through his defense attorney, he roused supporters to rise against his persecutors and promised to run for president in 2012 as standard bearer of the Democratic Progressive Party, from which he resigned after he offered the public apology to admit to money laundering, for which he blamed his wife. He and his wife were indicted. The open trial of Taiwan’s first president after retirement is expected to last for years. President Ma’s Tasks Ahead Tasks facing Ma Ying-jeou, who was sworn in as president on May 20, 2008, are indeed daunting. He has to deliver what he has promised, a clean government. He owed his election to the swing voters who wanted to punish the Democratic Progressive Party for ubiquitous corruption. To keep government integrity is almost a mission impossible. Without a doubt, corruption undermines both the democratic development and the economic competitiveness of a country. Public corruption has been defined as “the abuse of pubic office for private gain.” Anti-corruption is a top policy priority in Taiwan, where a recent survey showed a whopping 86 percent majority of the people believed their parliament was under the great impact of corruption and another 75 percent were convinced the police are corrupt. In other words, Taiwan’s democratic transformation has not improved, but has rather blemished, the integrity of the government. Taiwan needs to exert greater effort to promote integrity, fight corruption and rebuild public trust in government. However, there is no quick solution to achieve the success of anti-corruption and integrity enhancement; continuously investigating and measuring the degree of corruption and exposing it to the pubic could be one of the possible ways to end this curse on democracy. That is easier said than done.
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