Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) won a decisive victory with nearly 60 percent of the vote in the presidential election on Saturday. In political economist Kenneth Arrow's terms, the election results can be described as Taiwan's "social choice" as well as a rational choice based on the public's collective political preferences. However, whether it is a social or a rational choice, it is inevitable that people will associate Ma's resounding victory with the KMT's crushing defeat of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the January legislative elections.
We all know how, after the KMT won the January poll, the phrase "one-party dominance" has become almost a curse on the party. In fact, according to the Constitution, the legislature is an elected organization representing public opinion while the president is the chief executive and is directly elected by the general public. Hence, regardless of the election outcome, it is an expression of the public's collective rationality.
When the DPP said that they wanted to use the executive branch as a check on the legislative branch before Saturday's poll, did they really mean that the public should use their vote to elect an executive to monitor the institution they had elected to monitor the government?
This year's elections have shown that after eight years of social division and economic downturn, Taiwan is eager for change and has decided to let the KMT take full responsibility for both the executive and the legislative branches.
The election of a unified government is also the political norm in many countries. For example, between 1946 and 2004, the US had a divided government for 36 years and a unified government for 22 years. US voters do not worry that the executive and legislative branches are controlled by one party; instead, they worry that the division of the executive and legislative branches between two different parties could be a source of conflict.
Besides, one-party rule doesn't guarantee that there will not be a transfer of political power. Both in the US and France, transition of political power is a natural democratic choice and a normal expression of democratic political preferences.
As the nation's democracy matures, we should learn to calmly face and accept the outcome of each election and believe that we have the same political wisdom as voters in France and the US.
Taiwan is about to enter an era of unified government. This means that Taiwanese voters are hoping for a capable and efficient government.
In the past, the public made a "social choice" to let the DPP rule the country to pull itself out of the KMT's dominance, resulting in divided government for the first time. However, more than eight years of treading water politically, the DPP has been devoted to such ideological issues as removing the Chinese inscription on the gate to the National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall square and removing Chinese symbolism from Taiwan, while muddling important public policies on the economy, social security, education, natural resources and employment on the pretext that the legislature was dominated by the opposition.
This ignorance of the sufferings of the public has not only led to few political achievements but also accumulated a great deal of public complaints. Therefore, voters would rather put the KMT back in power with the expectation that it will transform itself into a capable and responsible political party.
The presidential election is over. The KMT must take responsibility for the nation and take advantage of running the government for the next four years.
Besides pondering on how to put its promises into practice and how to map out and implement public policies, most importantly, the KMT must find honest, upright and capable people to form a team with integrity that can avoid the errors of the past eight years. Only then can the KMT break through the ideological "one China" and ethnic barriers.
The DPP, on the other hand, should review why it strayed so far from the public's will and engage in soul searching to get ready for the next election.
Both parties have come to realize that the beauty of party politics lies in the fact that parties can not stay in power forever, nor in the opposition forever, and that the only thing that is forever is public opinion.
Liao Kun-jung is a professor of political science at National Chung Cheng University.
Translated by Ted Yang
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