Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05TAIPEI3007
2005-07-13 09:28:00
CONFIDENTIAL
American Institute Taiwan, Taipei
Cable title:  

KMT MACHINE VS. GRASS-ROOTS: MA LIKELY WINNER

Tags:  PGOV TW 
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This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

130928Z Jul 05
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TAIPEI 003007 

SIPDIS

STATE PASS AIT/W

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/13/2015
TAGS: PGOV TW
SUBJECT: KMT MACHINE VS. GRASS-ROOTS: MA LIKELY WINNER

REF: A. TAIPEI 632


B. TAIPEI 997

C. TAIPEI 1183

D. TAIPEI 2076

E. TAIPEI 2689

Classified By: AIT Acting Director, David J. Keegan, Reason(s): 1.4 (B/
D).

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TAIPEI 003007

SIPDIS

STATE PASS AIT/W

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/13/2015
TAGS: PGOV TW
SUBJECT: KMT MACHINE VS. GRASS-ROOTS: MA LIKELY WINNER

REF: A. TAIPEI 632


B. TAIPEI 997

C. TAIPEI 1183

D. TAIPEI 2076

E. TAIPEI 2689

Classified By: AIT Acting Director, David J. Keegan, Reason(s): 1.4 (B/
D).


1. (C) Summary: The July 16 Chairmanship election marks the
first time in the KMT's 110-year history that its highest
position will be put to a popular vote. This election also
marks the first time that a former KMT Chairman, Lien Chan,
could remain active in the party, albeit behind the scenes.
Lien has tacitly backed Legislative Yuan (LY) Speaker Wang
Jin-pyng throughout the election. Nevertheless, Taipei Mayor
Ma Ying-jeou is widely presumed to have a substantial lead,
although he has expressed concerns about attempts by Wang
supporters to stuff the ballot boxes in some areas. However,
even if Ma does succeed to the Chairmanship, his ability to
change the tenor of Taiwan's political discourse will be
limited by Lian's control over party finances and Wang's
control of the KMT's LY caucus. We will consider this issue
further septel. End Summary.

Contrasts Define the Candidates
--------------


2. (C) Wang is the Legislative Speaker of the Pan-blue
dominated Legislative Yuan, and a vice-chair of the party.
The Taiwan-born Wang is the quintessential KMT insider, and
after decades of working within the party, he has an
extensive, vertically-integrated network of loyal party
contacts, and access to the KMT's vote-getting machinery.
Because Wang is close to Lien, many KMT voters believe he is
steeped in KMT corruption, and therefore he has no desire to
push the KMT toward needed reforms. On the other hand,
Wang's association with Lien puts the KMT's extensive
financial resources at his disposal, which Wang has used to
fund an aggressively negative campaign against Ma. When it
comes to the "ethnicity" card, the Taiwan-born Wang has
little chance of attracting the Mainlander vote, but can
appeal to certain voters' desire to see the KMT become more
"Taiwanese."


3. (C) Though he is currently mayor of Taipei, and also
serves as a KMT vice-chair, Ma is trying to run an outsider's
campaign from within the KMT. The younger, more telegenic Ma
has carefully cultivated a squeaky-clean image, which makes
him popular among a broad swath of KMT supporters, especially

among women and younger people. Ma's anti-corruption/party
reform platform, while effectively convincing many voters
that Lien, Wang and his allies are old-fashioned and corrupt,
has at the same time alienated Ma from KMT leaders,
organizational resources, and financial support. The Ma
campaign professes to be perpetually short of cash. Born in
Hong Kong, Ma is the natural candidate for the Huang Fu Hsing
(HFH) vote: a 180,000-strong corps of retired KMT military
personnel and their families, most of whom are mainland-born,
stalwart anti-independence voters. Fully one-fifth of the
total number of KMT voters, with a typically
higher-than-average turnout rate, HFH support is the sine qua
non of any Ma victory. (Note: In June, in an attempt to use
Ma's mainlander status against him, Wang proposed segregating
HFH voting booths from the rest of KMT voters, and counting
HFH votes separately. The proposal was rejected by the KMT
election committee. End note.) According to internal KMT
polls, 80 to 90 percent of HFH voters are expected to vote
for Ma, along with 60 percent of rank-and-file voters.

Wang Supporters: Victory Before Reform
--------------


4. (C) Veteran KMT lawmaker and Wang supporter Hung Yu-chin
said that many within the KMT, including himself, feel that
since Ma has always been able to count on the HFH base, he
has been able to survive politically without cultivating
relationships with other important KMT constituencies. Hung,
who hails from southern Tainan County, said Ma has not
formulated a Taiwan-wide agenda, and has no political network
to speak of outside Taipei and its vicinity. Hung predicts
that should Ma win, his efforts at reform will be frustrated
by a lack of cooperation from constituencies that resent
being neglected. Hung believes Ma's narrow political base
and lack of senior leadership support will also prevent him
from unifying the party in time for the 2008 presidential
election, and will weaken him as a presidential candidate.

5. (C) Hung says Wang Jin-pyng is Ma's opposite: a
well-connected KMT insider who commands the cooperation and
loyalty of the KMT leadership. Hung said that while the KMT
rank-and-file will likely vote 60-40 in favor of Ma, the KMT
elite favor Wang 80-20. Hung said he and other Wang
supporters believes the party is weak, having lost two
presidential elections in a row; only Wang is capable of
providing the strong leadership required to focus the party
on winning the 2008 presidential election. Wang has said
publicly that if the KMT does not win in 2008, it could be
the "end of the KMT." Hung said Ma has his priorities
reversed -- only when the KMT is in a position of strength,
i.e., back in power, should it turn its attention to
questions of reform.

Ma Supporters: No Victory Without Reform
--------------


6. (C) KMT legislator and Ma supporter Lai Shi-bao said KMT
polling shows that although a majority of KMT legislators
support Wang, local KMT officials and rank-and-file KMT
voters favor Ma, by eight to ten point margins, with 20-22
percent of voters still undecided. This tracks closely with
almost all informed observers we have spoken to. Whatever
their political persuasion, they expect Ma to garner
something over sixty percent of the vote.


7. (C) Soochow University political science professor and
TVBS political commentator Emile Sheng told AIT that the Ma
campaign is not as poor as it would like the KMT electorate
to believe, and that corporate donors, expecting a Ma win,
are already lining up to provide financial backing. Sheng
cited the recent controversy over installing video cameras in
each KMT polling place, to deter and detect voting
misconduct. The KMT said it did not have money to fund this
security measure. Overnight, Ma found an anonymous donor
willing to provide the necessary $6 million NT. Sheng said
that Ma understands that it would be unseemly for the reform
candidate to be "loaded with cash," and has therefore kept a
low financial profile. As for Wang, Sheng told AIT that his
confidential sources within the Wang campaign confirm that

SIPDIS
Wang is in fact engaged in vote-buying and other illicit
"mobilization" schemes.


8. (C) Lai said that there has been little open debate
amongst KMT members, but the consensus within the party is
that, as a display of the party's increasing democratization,
the Chairmanship campaign has been good for the party. Lai
said the KMT has been losing younger voters to the seemingly
more youthful DPP, and must reverse that trend to assure its
long-term survival. The sense among Ma supporters is that it
is time to do away with "old people" politics. This
criticism of Wang notwithstanding, Lai told AIT that Ma has
been careful not to attack Wang too harshly because Ma
recognizes that Wang's cooperation will be essential to KMT
hopes of taking back the presidency in 2008. Lai said Ma's
camp had already broached with Wang the idea of a 2008
Ma-Wang ticket, and that Wang demurred, contending that he
would win the Chairmanship, not Ma. Lai insisted that both
sides understand that campaign attacks are part of the game,
and that after the election is over hard feelings will be put
aside to rally the party toward the common goal of unseating
the DPP.


9. (C) Lai said the determining factor in this election will
be voter turnout: if the turnout is large, at or above 50
percent of total eligible KMT voters, the large degree of
rank-and-file participation will swing the election to Ma.
If voter turnout is small, at or below 30 percent, Wang's
voter mobilization advantage will likely decide the race in
his favor. Voting will take place on Saturday, July 16, from
8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., with the result likely to be
determined by 8:00 p.m. that evening.
KEEGAN