Nationalists Make Gains in Taiwan Vote

In a result likely to ease tensions with China, Taiwan’s ruling Nationalist Party on Saturday reversed a decade of decline in national and local elections, improving its majority in the national legislature and recapturing City Hall in this capital.

In the island’s most closely watched race, Harvard-educated lawyer Ma Ying-jeou of the Nationalist Party upset incumbent Chen Shui-bian of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party to become mayor of Taipei.

The Ma victory is likely to be met with relief in Beijing, where Communist Party leaders, who insist that Taiwan is a province of the mainland, are wary of the Democratic Progressive Party’s pro-independence platform.

“With these elections,” said Pao Tsung-ho, head of the department of politics at National Taiwan University, “Communist China must understand that Taiwan’s people want to maintain the status quo, wanting neither immediate unification nor immediate independence.”

The strong Nationalist showing enhances the party’s chances of retaining the Taiwanese presidency when the term of President Lee Teng-hui, 74, expires in 2000. The Taipei mayoral contest, between two of the island’s most dynamic politicians, was widely considered a preview of a new generation of leadership that will take Taiwan into the 21st century.

Only seven months ago, when Ma, 48, first announced his candidacy for mayor, victory appeared impossible.

Chen, 47, enjoyed a 70% approval rating among Taipei’s population, which credited him with improving the flow of traffic, cleaning up streets and closing down most of the city’s “barbershop” brothels during his four years in office. Moreover, Chen is a Taiwanese native, while Ma, born in Hong Kong, comes from a prominent “mainlander” family that migrated to Taiwan after World War II.

However, Ma, exploiting his movie-star good looks and the “Mr. Clean” image he earned as justice minister in the national government, won support by pledging to use his international credentials to make Taipei a “world-class city.”

To overcome the prejudice against mainlanders here, he got help from President Lee, the Nationalist Party leader who is the island’s first native-born chief executive.

Appearing with Ma at several rallies in the hectic last week of campaigning, Lee affectionately called Ma “the boy next door” and embraced him as a “New Taiwanese,” a bridge-making phrase that seemed to dissipate historical “mainlander-versus-Taiwanese” passions, at least in Taipei.

Given two attractive candidates to choose between, the Taipei population overcame the ethnic barrier and voted to give Ma a chance.

“Both men are good,” said James Wang, a bicycle factory manager. “Last time, I voted for Chen. This time, I voted for Ma. But I had the luxury of choosing between two capable leaders.”

As the decades pass since the Nationalist Party--known here as the Kuomintang, or KMT--fled to this island after being defeated by the Communists on the Chinese mainland, Wang and his family are fairly typical of how old ethnic differences, while still an important political factor, are blurring.

Wang’s late father was a Mandarin-speaking mainlander, but his mother speaks only the Taiwanese dialect. He speaks Taiwanese dialect with his wife but Mandarin with his two children, who learned it as the language of instruction in school.

In his acceptance speech, Ma termed his success a “victory for reconciliation.”

“It’s not my personal victory but a victory for all of Taipei’s citizens,” Ma said as supporters drenched him with champagne in a central Taipei square.

Across the city, citizens celebrated with fireworks and horn-blaring motorcades. After a year of democratic elections, the Taiwanese still celebrate them with a festive, almost carnival, spirit.

The Taipei mayoral election was also marked by the virtual disappearance of the mainlander-dominated Chinese New Party.

In the 1994 race, won by the Democratic Progressive Party’s Chen, the New Party candidate captured 30% of the vote. Saturday, New Party candidate Wang Chien-shien received 3% of the vote. As a result of the New Party collapse, Chen won a greater percentage of the vote than in 1994 but still lost the election because most New Party voters opted for Ma.

Chen, an energetic campaigner, was despondent in defeat, bowing deeply to supporters outside party headquarters. “Sorry I disappointed each one of you,” he said.

Despite his loss, Chen is expected to continue as a political force.

“There is almost no doubt that Chen will be the opposition party’s candidate for president in the year 2000,” a Western trade official here said.

In elections for the national parliament, the Legislative Yuan, the KMT improved its majority hold on the lawmaking body after suffering declines in the last two elections.

According to still-incomplete results Saturday night, the KMT was assured of at least 55% of the parliamentary seats. It held 52% after the 1995 elections.

The only serious setback for the KMT came in the southern port city of Kaohsiung, where incumbent KMT Mayor Wu Den-yi, 50, the heavy favorite, was narrowly upset by Democratic Progressive candidate Frank Hsieh, 52.

An emotional Hsieh described his win as a “miracle victory. Every single vote counted.”