NEW KMT CHAIR MA YING-JEOU FACES CHALLENGES TO

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 TAIPEI 003058

SIPDIS

WASHINGTON PASS AIT/W

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/19/2015
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR AA
SUBJECT: NEW KMT CHAIR MA YING-JEOU FACES CHALLENGES TO
RESTORING PARTY UNITY


Classified By: AIT Director Douglas H. Paal, Reason 1.4 b


1. (C) Summary. Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou won a landslide
election as the next Kuomintang Chair, winning 72 percent of
the vote to Speaker Wang Jin-pyng's 28 percent. Though Ma
publicly agreed with Wang's statement that the Chair race and
the 2008 presidential race are separate issues, most
observers see Ma as now the clear frontrunner for the KMT
nomination. Ma's challenge will be to rebuild KMT unity
around his leadership even as he pursues controversial party
reform. Wang,s refusal to meet with Ma the evening of the
vote, however, is an early warning that this may be a
difficult task. Ma won a majority in every county and city
on the island, including Wang's home in Kaohsiung County.
End Summary.


2. (U) Mayor Ma Ying-jeou won a landslide election to
replace Lien Chan as the next Kuomintang Party (KMT) Chair on
Saturday, July 16. The island-wide vote went smoothly and
the efficient counting process was completed by 9:00, five
hours after the polls closed. With just over fifty percent
of the one million eligible KMT members voting, Ma won
375,056 votes (72 percent) to Legislative Yuan (LY) Speaker
Wang Jin-pyng's 143,268 (28 percent).

Unifying and Leading
--------------


3. (U) The popular and reputedly squeaky clean Ma ran
against virtually the entire Pan-Blue coalition leadership,
as most KMT and People First Party (PFP) LY members and most
KMT elders endorsed Wang. In his public statement accepting
victory, Ma reached out to Wang with compliments and promises
of support, and offered words of appreciation to current KMT
Chair Lien Chan and PFP Chair James Soong for their years of
leadership. He thanked Lien for deepening the party's
democratization, which made a competitive Chair election
possible for the first time in the party's nearly one hundred
year history. Ma then reiterated his campaign pledge of
party reform, which had unsettled many KMT leaders. He also
announced that he will establish a KMT youth corps to
rejuvenate the KMT. Underscoring that emphasis, Ma's victory
celebration itself was held in the Taipei Youth Center.


4. (C) In his statement, Ma explained that his overarching
goal will be to build up the KMT so that it can become the
ruling party in 2008. He quickly added, however, that it is
too early to say who will represent the KMT in the
presidential election that year. Ma also pledged to
cooperate with the PFP and reestablish the Pan-Blue alliance
in order to win the year-end city/county magistrate
elections.


5. (C) The party election also elected 1,105 delegates to
next month's KMT National Party Congress. These delegates
will, in turn, elect a new 210-member KMT Central Committee
and 31-member Central Standing Committee, the latter of
particular importance as the day-to-day governing body of the
party.

Facing Stiff Challenges
--------------


6. (C) Ma,s first challenge will be to restore unity within
the KMT following a sometimes bruising campaign. He
announced that he would make Wang's 15-point campaign
platform official KMT policy, and he pledged to share party
leadership by inviting Wang to be KMT First Vice Chair and
retaining all three other Vice Chairs and party officials.
When campaign workers at Ma headquarters began cheering Ma's
early lead in vote counting, Ma Spokesman You Zi-xiang
whispered to AIT that "we must not smile too much" in order
to "give face to Wang." When Wang called Ma to concede the
election, Ma requested a meeting with Wang to demonstrate
Party unity, a request Wang refused. Speaking to his own
supporters gathered at his campaign headquarters, Wang stated
that he intended to follow in Lien's lead and become a
life-long volunteer worker for the KMT. Television political
commentators quickly interpreted Wang's remark as a refusal
of Ma's invitation to serve as KMT First Vice Chair.


7. (C) In the final week of the campaign, a flood of
Pan-Blue legislators and elders publicly endorsed Wang for
KMT Chair. Journalists at Ma's victory celebration told AIT
they saw Lien Chan's ballot when he deposited it in the
ballot box, and he had voted for Wang. TV news stations and
newspapers all ran photos purporting to show that Lien's
ballot, as he placed it in the ballot box, was marked in
Wang's column. PFP officials and legislators, moreover, have
told AIT that Party leaders from James Soong down greatly
dislike Ma for his perceived arrogance and his cultivated
image of honesty. Ma campaign director and LY member Lai
Shih-pao, however, told AIT that the legislators' endorsement
of Wang was not a big problem or obstacle to Party unity,
because the LY members had no choice but to support their
Speaker. They will quickly "realize where power lies," Lai
argued, and come around to accept Ma as party Chair.


8. (C) Ma told his campaign workers he agreed with Wang's
insistence that the Chair race and the 2008 presidential race
are separate issues. Nevertheless, several volunteers told
AIT that they believe the KMT presidential nomination is Ma's
for the taking. Noting that Ma and Wang's final vote count
tallied closely with that predicted by public opinion polls,
Soochow University Professor and pollster Emile Sheng argued
in a post-election television interview that the election
indicated Ma was the most likely KMT presidential candidate
in 2008. Several Ma campaign workers told AIT at the victory
celebration that Wang would make a good Vice Presidential
candidate to a Ma presidential candidacy.

Comment
--------------


9. (C) Ma's overwhelming win has established him as the
front-runner in the race for the KMT 2008 presidential
nomination. At this very early stage, the nomination is Ma's
to lose, but the opportunities for stumbling are many. Ma
must restore party unity with the Wang camp after an
occasionally bitter campaign; he must elect a new Central
Standing Committee next month that will at once reiniforce
his leadership and salve the wounds of the Wang camp; and he
must fulfill his promise to lead the KMT to win a majority of
the city and county chief races in the December 3 local
elections. Wang Jin-pyng's refusal to meet with Ma Saturday
night after the Chair election and his cryptic statement that
he will do "volunteer worker" for the Party suggest that Ma
has his work cut out for him on unifying the party. The
December elections, moreover, will pit Ma against the DPP's
aggressive Chair, Su Tseng-chang, a proven campaigner and
campaign organizer. Meanwhile, the KMT Chair election offers
a sliver of optimism that, as President Chen Shui-bian
himself has stated, the KMT under new leadership might begin
to cooperate with the ruling DPP enough to move Taiwan beyond
the legislative gridlock caused in large measure by Lien
Chan's refusal to cooperate with President Chen, whom he
considers elected illegitimately. Ma will still have to
consolidate his leadership within the party and deal with the
fears of the party establishment as he implements his
reforms. End Comment.

Bio Note
--------------


10. (C) Born in Hong Kong in 1950 of Mainland parents, Ma
Ying-jeou has been working in recent years to identify with
the growing sense of Taiwan identity among Taiwan voters.
According to his Taipei Language Institute tutor, Ma studies
Taiwanese each day, though native Taiwanese speakers tell AIT
that he speaks Taiwanese with a "very heavy" accent. After
earning his LL.B. in 1972 from National Taiwan University, Ma
went to the U.S., where he received his LL.M from NYU in 1976
and his J.S.D. from Harvard in 1981. He returned to Taiwan
and served as President Chiang Ching-kuo's English
interpreter (1981-88) and Deputy Secretary General of the KMT
Central Committee (1984-88). He served successively as
Chairman of the Research, Development and Evaluation
Commission (1988-91),Vice Chairman of the Mainland Affairs
Council (1991-93),and Minister of Justice (1993-96),
resigning -- or being forced out of -- the last position in
the face of heavy internal party opposition to his political
and judicial reform efforts. Ma was elected Mayor of Taipei
City in 1998 and reelected in 2002. He is married with two
children.
PAAL