Society

Tsai Ing-wen secures DPP nomination

(China Daily)
Updated: 2011-04-28 08:06

TAIPEI - Taiwan's main opposition party said on Wednesday that it will nominate its chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen for next year's "presidential" election, following her narrow win an island-wide telephone poll.

The pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is expected to formally announce Tsai's nomination on May 4. According to party rules, the winner of the poll automatically becomes its nominee.

The election will be held in January 2012.

Tsai, 54, won the DPP's primary to secure her candidacy against two senior party members, said acting chairman Ker Chien-ming.

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Tsai, who has moderated her party's policies towards the mainland, will be the first woman in the island's history to run for the post.

She has served as DPP chairwoman since a humiliating defeat in the 2008 "presidential" polls, but has since led the party to victory in several regional elections.

Tsai Ing-wen is chair woman of Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party. [Photo/China Daily]

A legal scholar-turned-politician, she will run against the incumbent Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang (KMT) party, who is seeking a second, and final, four-year term.

In the telephone poll of 15,000 eligible voters, Tsai defeated Ma by 42.5 percent to 35 percent, while the veteran DPP politician Su Tseng-chang outscored Ma by 41.2 percent to 33.8 percent.

Ma was the only candidate to register for the ruling KMT, and his formal nomination was also announced by the party's central standing committee on Wednesday.

Cross-Straits relations have improved markedly since Ma took office in 2008. During his three years in office, Ma has promoted trade and tourism with the mainland and pushed for closer ties, symbolized by the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, which Tsai opposed.

When asked to comment on recent speeches by Tsai Ing-wen and Su Tseng-chang, Beijing's top Taiwan affairs body warned on Tuesday that any policy on cross-Straits ties based on pro-independence will jeopardize the exchanges and cooperation between Taiwan and the mainland.

"(Such a policy) under whatever guise, will hinder the peaceful development of cross-Straits relations and impact the stability of the cross-Straits situation," said Yang Yi, spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, at a regular news conference.

Tsai, who has a doctorate from the London School of Economics and Political Science, began her political career in the late 1990s as an adviser on Taiwan's "national security council". She subsequently served as "vice-premier" from 2006 to 2008.

Agencies