The DPP's victory in the presidential election has a special meaning for women in Taiwan, with the election of Annette Lu (
"Taiwan became today the first country in the world with a Confucian cultural heritage to elect a woman vice president," Lu told supporters in English during victory celebrations at the party's campaign headquarters in Taipei.
Taiwan can be proud to be one of the few countries in the world to fulfill the goal set by the 1995 United Nations World Conference on Women -- to have equal participation for women in politics and society by the year 2000, Lu said.
Lu's background as a long-time lobbyist in the international arena is seen as a major plus for Chen, who is less experienced in this area.
Lu, one of the "Kaohsiung Eight" imprisoned after the 1979 Kaohsiung Incident, holds two master's degrees in law from the University of Illinois and Harvard University.
Lu has also been active in the United Nations lobbying on Taiwan's behalf.
Meanwhile, speaking from a wheelchair, the new first lady, Wu Shu-jen (
Wu added that she recognized the importance of Lu's proposal for giving women equal participation.
Wu was paralyzed from the waist down in 1985 after she was run over by a truck in what is widely believed to have been a politically motivated act.
Wu became a legislator the year after Chen was sentenced to eight months in prison in a libel suit.
Wu said she felt angry when Chen lost Taipei City's mayoral election in 1998, but took the defeat as a new starting point in her next endeavor to support Chen in his race for the presidential office.
Speaking to thousands of screaming supporters last night, Wu said she was confident and proud that they had achieved their goal.
"As you [Taipei City] didn't want to elect Chen as Mayor, that's fine, we'll just take the presidency," Wu said.
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