Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) will play a decisive role in the year-end race for Taipei mayor, although incumbent Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) may seem a formidable opponent compared to the DPP's candidate, Cabinet Secretary-General Lee Ying-yuan (李應元).
"The tenser the race, the more evident Lee Teng-hui's influence on the polls," said Chin Heng-wei (金恆煒), editor in chief of Contemporary magazine.
"Imagine how powerful it will be when Lee Teng-hui, a former president, and Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), the incumbent president, each hold up one of Lee Ying-yuan's hands at a campaign rally to offer their endorsement and ask for voters' support," he said.
Although it is still too early to tell who will eventually prevail in the race, Chin said that it's a war that the DPP can afford to lose but that the KMT must win.
"If you really want to link the Taipei mayoral election with the 2004 presidential poll, the DPP isn't under as much pressure as the KMT is because if the DPP loses, it still has the presidential election to look forward to while the KMT doesn't," Chin said.
After obtaining the go-ahead from Chen, the DPP on Friday tapped the 49-year-old Lee to represent it in the Dec. 7 election against the popular 52-year-old Ma.
The party's Central Executive Committee is expected to approve Lee's nomination at its next meeting on Tuesday.
Although the party's campaign team has not yet mapped out a campaign strategy, it is widely believed that Lee Ying-yuan, though deemed a viable candidate, will be facing an uphill battle.
Lee himself has also said that it will be a tough fight because he has scored poorly in various polls.
Chin, however, said that Lee Ying-yuan stands a good chance of winning if he can manage to garner between 60,000 and 70,000 more votes than those secured by Chen when he was running against Ma in the 1998 mayoral election.
That is, Lee has to secure at least 740,000 votes in order to win.
Ma garnered about 760,000 popular votes in the last Taipei mayoral election, while Chen received 680,000 and Wang Chien-hsien (王建火宣) of the New Party received 30,000.
In total, the "pan blue" camp secured 790,000 votes versus the 680,000 votes received by the "pan green" camp.
"I believe that the structure of the electorate here in Taipei City is a more important factor than a candidate's personal characteristics, despite how good or how bad they are," Chin said.
About one third of the city's population has mainland origins, while another third is from outside the city and the remaining third are Taipei natives.
Ko Chin-sheng (
"I believe Lee Ying-yuan stands a good chance of winning because former president Lee Teng-hui has publicly offered his endorsement," Ko said.
"Don't forget, Ma won the previous mayoral election mainly because of Lee's endorsement," Ko said.
But Wu Tung-yeh (吳東野), the chairman of the Institute of International Relations at National Chengchi University, disagreed.
"Yes, I do believe that the former president still has some influence in the political arena, but I doubt that he can help Lee Ying-yuan win the election," Wu said.
"Lee [Teng-hui] has to be very careful in terms of helping to map out the DPP's campaign strategy, it may backfire otherwise."
Playing ethnic or ideological cards might help the DPP gain some ground in the polls, but it poses potential danger as well, Wu said.
"It might work a little for the mayoral polls but it might undermine the presidential election or sabotage Chen's political image if they go too far," Wu said.
Wu, who claims to be friends with both Ma and Lee Ying-yuan, said that it would be a tough fight for Lee although the two have similar professional experience and educational background.
"The incumbent Ma is popular and has a lot of charisma, while Lee is starting late and has a ways to catch up," Wu said.
"My suggestion to Lee is that he pay more attention to public issues and not take opinion polls too seriously," he added.
Commenting on the delay of Lee's nomination, Wu said that the DPP may see the Taipei mayoral poll as a litmus test for the 2004 presidential election.
"Even the DPP loses the poll, it's a good way to gauge how much support the `pan-blue' camp can garner," Wu said.
Although Lee has said that he would like to have a "gentleman's race" with Ma, Wu said that he is not that optimistic about the notion.
"Sometimes, a candidate just can't dictate how to pay the game -- he can only follow the campaign strategy formulated by his party," Wu said.
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