TAIWANESE PRESIDENT Ma Ying-jeou faces a tougher-than-expected fight for re-election after challenger Tsai Ing-wen’s clever campaign addressed those who have not benefited from closer ties to mainland China.
Mr Ma came into office on a landslide win for his KMT Nationalist Party in 2008, as his pro-Beijing message resonated with the electorate. But opinion polls show he has just a three- to four-point lead over Ms Tsai, whose Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lost by 17 points four years ago amid a graft scandal centred on then-president Chen Shui-bian, who is now in jail.
The two candidates are remarkably similar, even if they are on opposite sides of the political spectrum. Both hail from the Taiwanese political elite. Mr Ma (61) and Ms Tsai (55) were both educated abroad – he at Harvard Law School and she at the London School of Economics.
China says Taiwan is a breakaway province, to be brought back into the fold at any cost – by force if necessary. While China has been unusually calm in the run-up to this Saturday’s election, it remains set on unification.
The self-ruled island’s election has international ramifications. The US has pledged to back Taiwan in the event of an invasion, and Taiwan’s close links with Washington, which include arms sales, have had a challenging effect on US ties with China.
Taiwanese politicians have to be careful about how they balance the issue of closeness with mainland China. Growing closeness to China has proven popular with the KMT’s backers, ironic given that the KMT ruled China before fleeing to Taiwan at the end of the civil war in 1949, and was a bitter rival of the Communist Party.
The KMT’s message is to balance closeness with China and Taiwanese sovereignty. But a big chunk of the electorate does not want cosier ties with China, and many in the DPP camp want the island to declare independence.
Beijing says attempts to establish an independent “republic of Taiwan” would end in war. But this kind of rhetoric from Beijing gives many in Taiwan the shivers, and they want less, not more, engagement with the mainland.
Ms Tsai is a less divisive character than her predecessor, Chen Shui-bian. She is an academic and has done much to shore up support for the DPP. While she has not yet been elected to public office, she has run a smart campaign.
In Taiwan, everyone likes the island’s self-ruled status but they are keenly aware of the fact that China has thousands of missiles always armed and pointed across the Strait at Taiwan.
Mr Ma can point to the strong economic performance the government has overseen, which is linked to closer links to China. The economy expanded 4.5 per cent last year, despite the global economic slowdown.
But Ms Tsai has been able to focus on rising house prices in the big cities and the growing income gap between the urban rich and rural poor. She has promised that the DPP will continue to engage with China on an economic basis but wants to slow down the process. Ms Tsai says Mr Ma’s approach has weakened Taiwanese sovereignty.
Another complicating factor is a third-party candidate, James Soong, who used to dominate the KMT. He will not win, but could take votes away from Mr Ma.