Surprise, surprise. It appears that Chinese Nationalist Party Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
Observe the change in Ma's position over the last week:
* Friday, June 2: Ma says he supports a recall of the president only if 30 Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators sign on. This effectively conceded that any recall campaign was impossible -- because the pan-blue camp does not have the numbers in the legislature.
* Saturday, June 3: Ma asks Chen to consider resigning. He then joins PFP Chairman James Soong at a rally he earlier said he would not attend. Soong demands Chen step down and criticizes the KMT for not going after Chen with more vigor. PFP and other pan-blue supporters abuse Ma for "weakness," "incompetence" and "cowardice."
* Monday, June 5: Vice President Annette Lu (
* Tuesday, June 6: Without citing evidence and during an ongoing probe, Ma suggests Chen had direct knowledge of alleged insider trading by his son-in-law Chao Chien-ming (
* Wednesday, June 7: Ma backs the KMT caucus' decision to launch a recall campaign against the president because Chen refused to step down. The idea, he says, is to "encourage" Chen to step down of his own accord. Ma cites former president Lee Teng-hui (
* Thursday, June 8: Ma reverses previous doubts about Annette Lu and supports her replacing Chen if he were to leave office, saying she was more suitable than a president with suspect family members because the (unmarried, childless) Lu was not corrupt. Ma meets American Institute in Taiwan Chairman Raymond Burghardt, visiting from the US, after Burghardt met the president.
* Yesterday, Friday, June 9: Ma prepares to attend a rally today in Kaohsiung demanding that the president step down. Burghardt praises the president for affirming cross-strait policy.
This sequence of events shows that when faced with a conflict, Ma does not have the courage to tell party enemies and rivals in the PFP to back off.
But backing Lu for president is another thing altogether. The vain, ill-disciplined and disloyal Lu is enough of a liability in her present position; elevating her to president would destabilize the country and bring discredit upon all responsible -- including Ma.
Crucially at this time, the US has given Chen a boost for his cooperation on cross-strait affairs. Washington, if nobody else, recognizes that campaigning for removal of a president from office for the alleged misdemeanors of others is nothing less than a frontal assault on the beloved cross-strait "status quo." The fact that Ma toured the US only a few months ago depicting himself as a champion of this "status quo" provides all the evidence to declare Ma a disingenuous, limp and flaky heir to his idol and former employer, dictator Chiang Ching-kuo (
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