Ma Lien Wang Threesome

Ma announcing a presidential bid after getting indicted for corruption? That's like getting caught in bed cheating by your wife, and then inviting her to have a threesome! -- tart comment found in my email inbox.

The fawning and crying over Ma yesterday had its lighter moments. As I sat in our usual haunt eating soup and watching TVBS, a sequence showing the Savior of the KMT giving blood at some point during the day was shown. Local media was all over this key story, showing him sitting in the chair (good advert for blood giving, I strongly approved), but also showing closeups of the bag of blood with its medical information, and the doctors discussing every tiny detail. Thank god the newest candidate for president hadn't given a stool sample.

On the evening of the indictment the KMT showed its continuing commitment to corrupt government by convening an emergency meeting to lift the prohibition on indicted members running for President. The Taiwan News reported that the measure was opposed by Jason Hu, Mayor of our fair hamlet of Taichung, and by the representatives from the Wang Jin-pyng camp. Wang, the legislative speaker, is Ma's chief rival in the KMT. This little tidbit was what really cracked me up:

Juan Kang-meng (阮剛猛), chairman of the KMT's Evaluation and Discipline Committee, said the membership of Hsinchu County Magistrate Cheng Yung-ching and Legislator Chang Chang-tsai, both of whom had violated the clause, would be reinstated.

Not only did the KMT make itself out to be completely hypocritical, they also brought back into the party people even they had kicked out for corruption. I'm curious to see how this affects the problem of the KMT Mayor of Keelung, who was both indicted and convicted for problems relating to bogus land deals, but whom the KMT has been strangely reluctant to move against (didn't see that in the international media reports on the pious "anti-corruption" campaign). Readers may recall that Ma took some fire for his support of that politician.

Early call: the key gainer from the indictment? None other than Ma Ying-jeou himself. As we saw with the Chen Shui-bian family indictments, core support has rallied around Ma. Ma's move to announce his Presidential candidacy the day of the indictment was brilliant. He's pre-empted everyone else, placed himself in the front-runner position, exploited the focus on the indictment for maximum publicity, made everyone forget that his position is that he is guilty but ignorant, and psychologically, made the effect of the indictment shrink. Whoever is handling Ma did a bang-up job with that move. Now instead of competing for the Presidential nomination, whoever announces next is in the psychological position of having to dislodge Ma from the driver's seat.

The anti-Ma side also was another big gainer. There've been mutterings from below about a ticket with Lien Chen on it -- they will only get louder. Wang Jin-pyng's stock also rose, but ultimately Wang is a Taiwanese in a party whose core support is anti-Taiwanese (Taipei Times article on Wang supporters complaining about party rule change to support Ma). They will never accept Wang as a President, remembering how Lee Teng-hui "betrayed" them by supporting Taiwan. A Lien-Wang ticket is not out of reach, but it will be hard. The possibility of a Lien-Ma or Ma-Lien ticket, however, has risen. At some point someone may recall that Ma is only 58 this year, and that "Chairman for Life" Lien deserves to be President.

Ah, the future. What happens if Ma is convicted?

[Taiwan] [China] [Chen Shui-bian] [media] [corruption] [Ma Ying-jeou]