As the sole registered contender for the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) primary for next year’s presidential election, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) appears more ready than ever to wage a re-election battle under the party’s banner.
While the KMT’s formal endorsement of Ma as its presidential candidate at its national convention is still several months away, Ma has reportedly already begun his unofficial campaign effort. Aside from increasing the number of already frequent gatherings with young people, Ma has also been increasing his Facebook presence in an obvious attempt to engage more with youth.
Meanwhile, despite a denial from the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics that the administration’s latest plan for a public sector employee pay raise was a simply an election ploy, the timing of the raise has raised suspicions across a wide spectrum of the public about a political motive.
As the incumbent, Ma has an advantage over whoever his Democratic Progressive Party opponent turns out to be.
However, in light of recent controversies surrounding Ma, it is clear that one of the major hurdles facing his re-election bid is Ma himself.
A recent poll by the cable news station TVBS found that 22 percent of respondents believed Ma when he said he had not known of Supreme Court Judge Shao Yen-ling’s (邵燕玲) controversial ruling in a child sexual assault case before he nominated her to a seat on the Council of Grand Justices and only learned about it afterward from a newspaper report.More than half the respondents (56 percent) did not believe Ma’s account.
While Ma’s supporters may jump to his defense and say that one poll is not conclusive evidence of a credibility problem facing the president, the number of non-belivers in the TVBS survey, as well as the size of the gap between the number of believers and non-believers, offer a grim glimpse into the public’s impression of Ma and the uphill battle he faces.
How can the president convince voters that he deserves a second term when so many people question his credibility?
Many still remember his infamous “6-3-3” campaign pledge ahead of the 2008 election — the vow to deliver annual GDP growth of 6 percent, annual per capita income of US$30,000 and an unemployment rate of less than 3 percent — which turned out to be like all the other campaign promises that have failed to materialize.
Ma has often cautioned his officials to be more aware of the importance of the public’s perception even as he appears totally unaware that his own lack of action or ability to follow through on his promises, idiotic remarks and blame-shifting combine to undermine his credibility.
Indeed, Ma only has himself to blame for public questioning of his credibility. With the 2012 presidential election campaign soon to start in earnest, many are waiting — both at home and abroad — to see if Ma will heed the public doubts and try to rebuild his credibility. Or will he just let his ego guide his campaign and continue to take Taiwanese for fools who will swallow his every utterance, hook, line and sinker?
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