Election!

Taiwan had an election today for president. The campaigning for it has been pretty fierce for the past couple weeks. The most recent week I've seen many cars driving around playing drums and waving flags for certain candidates.

For those of you unfamiliar with Taiwanese politics, there were two candidates up for election: Ma Ying-jeou (for the Kuomintang) and Frank Hsieh (for the Democratic Progressive Party). Ma ended up winning the election by a 15 point margin. Here's an article that outlines the situation in a little more detail.

It was nice having a ground-level look at what people thought about the election. It was hard to get some people to speak; politics here can be even more impassioned than American elections. I was able to coax a few opinions out of some friends and cab drivers. Supporters of Ma were most admiring of his anti-corruption credentials (a problem that has plagued Taiwan in recent years) while Hsieh supporters point to his harsher stance towards Beijing.

Seeing this election definitely made me glad that I chose to come to Taiwan. All the fanfare and passion of the election was something that I wouldn't be able to see first hand if I went to the Mainland. I think many Taiwanese people are glad that Chen's time as president are over (marred by economic troubles, corruption, and strained Cross-Strait relations) and to get a new face to represent them for years to come.