Vote is over, but what lies ahead?

The campaign for the presidency ended with yesterday's election and as predicted by many opinion polls, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was elected, garnering 58 percent of the vote. With his election, the KMT reclaims the reins of power after eight years in opposition, providing yet another example to support US political scientist Samuel Huntington's saying that democratic consolidation requires two government transitions.

Following the KMT's landslide win in the Jan. 12 legislative elections, which gave the party 72 percent of the vote, yesterday's win for Ma puts an end to the divided government that has ruled Taiwan for the past eight years with a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) president and Cabinet and a KMT-dominated legislature, once again putting Taiwan on the path of a unified government.

The DPP has experienced two major electoral setbacks in two months. Much of the blame for these defeats must be assigned to the government's lack of political achievements and corruption. The first set of issues the party will now have to deal with is the election of a new chairman, the overhaul of the party's power structure in the post-Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) era and the realignment of its leadership.

In the short term, an internal power struggle will be all but unavoidable, and the focus will be on the role of Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and the former New Tide faction as well as Chen's post-election agenda. In the long term, party reform, the direction of future development and the recruitment of the next generation of leaders will be crucial to the party's ability to return to government four or eight years from now.

Following his victory, Ma's first order of business will be to deal with personnel issues. To minimize concerns of a one-party hegemony, the premiership will likely be given to an ethnic Taiwanese -- as opposed to a Mainlander -- with a background in economics, while many political appointments are likely to go to women, non-party members and maybe even to individuals from other political parties.

This will probably apply in particular to independent institutions and the Control and Examination Yuan.

Next will be cross-strait relations. Although China will respond carefully and avoid revealing its position, tensions will not increase and relations will gradually become less tense. Ma will probably have ways to quickly deal with economic issues such as cross-strait chartered flights, tourism and investment, but probably will be more cautious in dealing with the "cross-strait common market" proposal and policies for recognition of Chinese degrees. When it comes to more sensitive political issues, his short-term approach is likely to be more conservative.

The triangular relationship between the US, China and Taiwan is also likely to take a turn for the better in the short run.

The KMT's communications channels with the US and China have always been good, and more importantly, the US and China see Ma as a more predictable leader. His first challenge in this complex relationship will be to handle the long-delayed arms procurement bill.

With the KMT controlling both the executive and the legislative branches of government, the question arises of whether inter-party relations will once again revert to violent opposition. In other words, will the DPP once again take to the streets?

There is probably not much likelihood of this happening as the DPP is more likely to bring its battles to the legislative floor.

With the new single member district electoral system, legislators will no longer be able to win election by attracting the support of specific minority groups. Due to re-election concerns, DPP legislators dependent on the support of a majority of voters in their districts will no longer be willing to resort to radical street demonstrations.

As expected, neither of the two UN referendums passed. This must not be interpreted as meaning that Taiwanese do not want UN membership. Rather, the referendums were sacrificed because they had been overly politicized and manipulated by both the DPP and the KMT.

The fact that six consecutive referendums have failed to pass in the past four years probably means that similar referendums are unlikely to be held again in the foreseeable future.

After a trying eight-year experience with a divided government, Taiwanese have chosen a unified government led by the KMT.

Although in the run-up to yesterday's election, some people expressed fears that such a government would mean a return to the past one-party KMT state and democratic regression, Taiwan has by now enjoyed many years of free elections. The public will have to wait and see whether Taiwan's democracy will be further consolidated or if there will be a rollback.

Wang Yeh-lih is a political science professor at Tunghai University.

Translated by Perry Svensson