Taiwan's worst presidential campaign is over. Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang won.
His victory wasn't easy. He ran as a candidate who is a defendant in a corruption case, albeit he was acquitted twice, for the Supreme Court has yet to pass judgment. The negative campaign tactics against him were staggering. His wife, sisters, daughters, even his deceased father were targeted as part of a smear campaign.
The largest handicap, however, is his original sin of being born a Chinese mainlander. He was labeled as a China lover, who would sell out Taiwan, and charged with carrying a valid U.S. permanent resident card, with which he would flee Taiwan, if something really wrong occurred.
Yet Ma beat Frank Hsieh, Taipei's "favorite son" candidate of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party.
This indicates the Hoklo majority of people are now free from the Feb. 28 trauma. In an incident that broke out on that day 61 years ago, tens of thousands of innocent islanders were slaughtered by government troops sent from China. The massacre spawned a lasting feud between the islanders and the mainlanders. The feud deepened, during what is known as the reign of White Terror that followed. Thousands of islanders were thrown into jail or executed as communist sympathizers or dissenters against autocratic rule.
All Democratic Progressive Party leaders have taken advantage of the islander-mainlander feud to win their political gains. They succeeded, and succeeded in dividing the country in the process. Finally, the offspring of those persecuted people of Taiwan accept the "Chinese mainlander" as their new president. They consider Ma one of them.
Democracy triumphed. Voters, young and old, turned out in droves to elect the man whom they believe is better than his rival.
As a matter of fact, Ma is better than Hsieh at one point. He is a man honest enough to apologize for whatever blunders or faux pas he or his Kuomintang leaders have committed in the run-up to the election. People regard his opponent as a politician, someone like President Chen Shui-bian, who did not step down when one million protesters marched in Taipei a little more than two years to demand his resignation to take responsibility for a spate of scandals involving himself, his family and his close associates.
Ma's honesty has convinced the people that he would do what he could to usher in the change he has promised to deliver. The people, truly fed up with government corruption over the past eight years, need hope for a change.
He instills that hope in the people.
（本文刊載於97.03.24 China Post第4版，本文代表作者個人意見）
