US embassy cable - 05TAIPEI3007

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