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Ma's real problem isn't the DPP, it's within the KMT

Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou yesterday leads high-level city officials at the immediate response center of the city's fire fighting station monitoring the typhoon. With the strong winds and rain brought by Typhoon Longwang, Ma urged all government officials and citizens to exercise extra caution. PHOTO: CNA

After taking over as the chairman of his party in July, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has often been attacked by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which questions Ma's ability to balance his two positions.

However, the biggest challenge for Ma -- whose chairmanship election victory consolidated his position as the party's likeliest presidential candidate in 2008 -- came from within the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and from his subordinates. While conservative forces in the KMT have reacted fiercely to the reforms that Ma is pledging to implement, the so-called "Ma team" in the Taipei City Government has recently been keeping him busy dealing with internal clashes.

For instance, former director of the information department, Yu Tzu-hsiang (游梓翔), resigned in August, allegedly over a conflict with Deputy Mayor King Pu-tsung (金溥聰). Meanwhile, Ho Hung-jung (何鴻榮), the former chief of the Taipei City Bureau of Civil Affairs and one of Ma's closest associates, resigned last month after allegedly having an affair with his secretary. Although the scandal was revealed by DPP legislators, Ho later told reporters that he was falsely incriminated by bureau staff.

The DPP has formed a "spokesperson's group" to target the mistakes that Ma makes as Taipei mayor, in an effort ot undermine his popularity before the 2008 election. The group's tasks include trying to find faults with members of the "Ma team," and has demanded that Ma make five special reports to the city council, on the same days that the KMT is scheduled to hold its Central Standing Committee meetings.

But some experts see this as a pointless strategy. They say that Ma's performance as KMT chairman, especially the progress he makes with his reform effort and how the party performs in the year-end local government elections, will play a bigger role in Ma's performance in the 2008 presidential election.

"Ma hasn't been doing a good job as Taipei mayor over the past seven years. It won't mean much to pick on his already bad performance in running the city," said Chin Heng-wei (金恆煒), the editor-in-chief of Contemporary Monthly magazine. "The year-end elections are a more important barometer of his chances in the 2008 presidential election."

Chiu Hei-yuan (瞿海源), a sociology professor at National Taiwan University, agreed that the DPP's criticism of Ma as mayor will not be as effective as the party may think. Ho's case, for example, did not have much impact on Ma's reputation, as the issue was solved quickly.

"We all know that the Ma team is not an efficient team -- it's not news. Maybe a bigger scandal will hurt his reputation. But judging from his personality, I don't think he will let that happen," Chiu said.

How to take on the conservative powers in his party, solve the KMT's internal wrangling and successfully integrate the pan-blue camp to win the year-end elections, Chiu said, are now Ma's biggest challenges.

Ma, knowing how much the year-end elections could mean for his career, has been talking to the People First Party (PFP) for months about cooperating in the year-end elections. But the road to integration has not been smooth, as the two parties' candidates in some places -- including Taichung City and Miaoli County -- have refused to give up running against each other.

With a good chance of winning the Penghu and Miaoli County commissioner elections, Chin believes that the DPP's performance in the year-end elections will definitely be better than the last time. In comparison, the pan-blue camp may suffer a defeat, judging from its problems with integration.

"If the pan-blue camp loses the year-end elections, Ma can forget about the 2008 presidential elections," Chin said.

The integration of the pan-blue camp is therefore a big concern for Ma.

According to Chiu, however, a pan-blue camp split in the year-end elections is not necessarily good news to the DPP.

"Many people are disappointed with the DPP government's performance. Voters may vote for whomever they think has a better chance of winning in the blue-camp, rather than giving votes to DPP candidates," he said.

Even if Ma survives the year-end elections, Chin said both the Taipei mayoral election next year and the legislative elections in 2007 will also be important for Ma to realize his dream to become the country's next president.
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