Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川), one of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) favorite subordinates and someone who always thought his post as minister of health was beneath him, tried to win the nomination as the party’s candidate for Hualien County commissioner with Ma’s backing.
Everyone thought the nomination was Yeh’s for the taking, but he lost to former Hualien County Agricultural Development Office director Tu Li-hua (杜麗華). This left Yeh without a job, and it embarrassed Ma. While Yeh’s loss in the primary is a minor event, it could give us a hint of other things to come — Ma’s prestige is starting to wane as his incompetent rule and poor disaster relief efforts have sent his approval ratings plummeting. Perhaps, after a while, we will look back and see that Yeh’s fall from grace was in fact the start of the “post-Ma era.”
Ma has acted like a willful dictator for more than a year now, acting against the democratic spirit of the principle that sovereignty belongs to the people. He has done this in an attempt to bind Taiwan’s sovereignty and economic future to China. The Democratic Progressive Party’s bid for a referendum against signing an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China was stopped by the Cabinet’s referendum review committee before it had even gotten off the ground. This is but one example of how Ma’s China-leaning policies have put Taiwan on an irreversible path toward unification.
As all this was happening, Taiwan was struck by Typhoon Morakot with losses and a death toll far greater than anything we have seen in recent years. Ma and his administration’s disaster relief efforts have been totally off the mark and this lack of appropriate action was the last straw. The public is angry and Ma’s approval rating has fallen to 16 percent.
As disaster relief efforts were being carried out and Ma’s reputation plummeted, some Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidates running in primaries removed pictures of themselves with Ma from their posters.
During the legislative elections early last year when Ma was also busy with his own presidential campaign, he traveled all around Taiwan to help stump for other KMT candidates who saw Ma as a sure-fire way to secure votes. As time has gone by, however, Ma has lost his halo, and after the recent floods, he has become something of a pariah among KMT candidates. Under these circumstances, even when Ma takes over the reigns of the KMT chairmanship, he will have a hard time convincing the public and an even harder time treating KMT legislators as if they were simple “rubber stamps.”
Voters are fickle and it is only natural that the popularity of a politician fluctuates. Ma’s crisis management skills are sorely lacking, however, and he has managed to diminish the position of commander in chief to that of a fire department chief. When he was forced to hold a press conference, he couldn’t come up with any effective measures.
It hasn’t even been a month since the floods, but it has been ample time for Ma to show his true colors. Coupled with a year of incompetent rule and an unemployment rate breaking through 6 percent and rising, Ma is now target No. 1.
The KMT has also seen how useless Ma is and may not tolerate him much longer. There is still a long way to go to 2012 and Ma should prepare himself for challenges to his post.
Previously, Ma was able to establish a strong position, but now we are on the verge of the post-Ma era. Such rapid change may leave Ma overwhelmed and those who initially voted for him too upset to even think of the past.
There are, however, reasons for the early onset of the post-Ma era. Ma lacks the ability to rule a country. For years, the pan-blue media have created an image of Ma as if he were an all powerful and wise leader. Now he has showed his true colors and the pan-blue media are enraged to discover that the man they supported was not the man they thought he was. It would be no surprise if the pan-blue camp and media started looking for someone with better leadership skills to replace him.
KMT members are now the people most sensitive to the coming of the post-Ma era. Over the past year, Ma has exploited the fact that he won by so many votes to act arrogantly and condescendingly, and nobody has dared challenge him.
KMT leaders, and especially the party’s legislators, must face their voters and attempt to consolidate their grassroots support, Ma has become a liability instead of an asset.
From now on, KMT members will have to remember that they are supposed to speak for the public, that they must have a conscience and that they will no longer be able to do whatever Ma does.
Everyone wants to see what sort of domino effect Yeh’s fall from power will cause. If the changes can stop Taiwan from being sold out, the arrival of the post-Ma era will be a good thing.
TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON
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