After witnessing Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
The first and most obvious similarity between the two men is the importance they place on image. Neither Blair nor Ma is one to pass up good PR and a photo opportunity. And it was Blair's youthful, clean-cut public image that helped him immensely during his early leadership and the general election campaign in 1997.
These are also qualities -- if we are to believe local media -- that Ma has in abundance. Often it seems hard to turn a street corner in Taipei without seeing the mayor's "Cheshire cat grin" beaming down on you. In fact, the two men place so much emphasis on the importance of appearance that it sometimes feels like they pay more attention to the public's perception of them than their actual responsibilities.
Also high on the list of like virtues must be their Teflon-like quality of dodging serious political flak -- it appears that no matter how much mud is thrown at either of them, very little sticks. Blair has famously squirmed his way out of serious repercussions over his twisting of the truth when securing the commitment of British troops to the Iraq debacle, even after it was later discovered by an independent inquiry that Downing Street had instructed intelligence authorities to be economical with the facts -- and that Blair had secretly agreed to back the US several months before the invasion was confirmed.
Ma has proved equally slippery with his ability to escape responsibility for the scandals that have beset Taipei during his tenure, including serious flooding during Typhoon Nari in 2001, the delayed reaction to the SARS epidemic, and more recently the spate of injuries and accidents on the city's MRT system. No matter how serious the scale of mismanagement, Ma always comes out of a crisis with his reputation untarnished. He and Blair would do well to remember former US president Harry Truman's desk-top sign, "The buck stops here."
The two also share an uncanny likeness in their ability to talk the talk without necessarily being able to deliver on their promises. Among Blair's more famous promises during his premiership have been his environmentally friendly transport policies, his tough stance on the causes of crime, university tuition fees and climate change. All these have seen the prime minister promise a great deal, but ultimately fail to deliver.
Ma is altogether cannier on this front, since in order to avoid disappointing people, he makes very few promises to begin with. Apart from his vow to rid the city of the sex trade early in his first term, it seems that he doesn't promise much at all for Taipei residents, instead steadily delivering on schemes whose benefits for the majority of the city's residents are dubious to say the least -- among them have been Wi-Fly Taipei (a wireless network covering the city) and a jogging track around Da-an Forest Park.
One grand promise Ma did make recently was that he would reform the KMT, but this is one he may live to regret, as much better men than he have failed in this colossal task.
The final challenge for Ma will be to see if he can mirror Blair's greatest victory and win back the presidency for the Nationalists.
To make the Labour Party electable, Blair took what was essentially a flatlining party that was totally out of touch with modern politics and remodelled it into an election-winning force, all within the space of three years.
To do this, he first had to reach out to Britain's wary middle classes and show them that a Labour win was nothing to be scared of and that the party wouldn't be as radical as past Labour governments with its spending and taxation plans.
Ma's task is similar. The KMT, with its antics under Lien Chan's(
Ma will have to use all his powers of persuasion and charm to convince traditionally non-Nationalist voters that he will not bring back the KMT of old, that he will deliver on his promise of party reform and to assure them he will not undermine Taiwan's international status by kowtowing to Beijing's every whim.
This will not be easy -- as Blair himself found out. Blair may be the most successful leader Labour has ever had, having won three straight general elections, but he is still reviled by many party members, who see him as a traitor to the party's traditional left-wing values. Under his New Labour movement, the party has moved toward the political right, advocated privatization of large parts of the national health service and weakened traditional links with labor unions to court big business.
Indeed, the party has changed so much that British political commentators remark that New Labour is more conservative than the Conservative Party.
Ma will face a similarly rough ride if he tries to carry out his threats of reform. If he attempts to seriously re-implement the previous localization policies of the party -- as opposed to the limp Taiwan-discourse theories he has recently espoused -- then he will make many enemies among the party's China-centric old guard. If he tries to root out corruption as he has promised -- something he proved to be almost too good at in the past -- then he will have to put up with even more resistance to his tenure.
To win the presidency, Ma will also have to maintain the middle ground in cross-strait affairs. Lean too far toward China and he will alienate many of the Taiwanese public; go the other way and he will lose the support of his party. He will have to tread very carefully in a mammoth task that requires a vast amount of preparatory work if he is to achieve his stated goal of leading the KMT to victory in the next presidential election. Whether Ma is up to the task and can emulate Blair's remarkable achievements remains to be seen.
One thing is for sure, though: It is not going to be just another "jog in the park."
Richard Hazeldine is a Taipei-based writer.
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