TAIPEI - It was just a routine viewers' survey, but a CNN online "poll" on
whether Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou should step down over his
administration's response to Typhoon Morakot made headlines in newspapers and
top-of-the-hour TV news in Taiwan, with traditionally anti-ruling party outlets
running wild with it.
"CNN poll shows 80% people want Ma to step down," shouted a front-page headline
on Liberty Times. Even television stations typically partial towards Ma played
up the story.
The killer typhoon that caught everyone by surprise with its extraordinarily
destructive power, pounding Taiwan with record rainfall from August 6 to 10 and
causing massive mudslides which
killed an estimated 500 people, is turning out to be Ma's biggest challenge yet
as president.
Since taking office in May 2008 after winning 58% of the votes in the
presidential election, his approval ratings have slid due to the economic
downturn and concerns about his China policy, but now they are at a near record
low of 29%.
The hardest-hit areas - Kaohsiung, Pingtung and Tainan counties, are all headed
by officials from the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Little
focus, however, has been placed on mistakes made by local officials, despite
the argument that they should have been the most aware of the local rainfalls,
flooding and the potential risk of landslides affecting villages in their
areas.
That's not surprising, said Andrew Yang, secretary general of the Taipei-based
Council of Advanced Policy Studies and a former government advisor under
ex-president Lee Teng-hui.
"People had already experienced inefficiency and incompetence at the lower
levels, so they were looking to Ma Ying-jeou for leadership," said Yang. "One
way or another, the system should've worked to reduce damages and loss of
lives, but it didn't. That's why people are targeting Ma Ying-jeou. They want
to get the problem solved. People want results."
It's still unclear what went wrong. Ma and the Executive Yuan, his cabinet,
have only been in office a little over a year and they did not create the
disaster response system - it was already there.
Information revealed since the typhoon hit indicates that the Central Weather
Bureau initially predicted low rainfalls for the south and had no idea the
typhoon would bring about 2,800 mm of rainfall in just four days - half or
two-thirds of the total amount of annual rainfall in the areas. Only when rains
started falling hard did the bureau steadily upgrade its rainfall forecast.
But it is unclear whether officials at the National Fire Agency's disaster
relief center were informed and if they had been informed, why they had not
reacted promptly to alert local officials to evacuate residents.
With so many agencies that could've and should've done something, it was
unclear why everyone dropped the ball.
Ma himself gave the impression in a recent news conference that he himself is
not clear about the chain of command that should have been followed in these
situations. He repeatedly pointed out that in the seven hardest-hit areas,
thousands of lives were saved in three or four of these areas because the
village or township chiefs there had had the smarts to evacuate their
residents, some of them having undergone training in this.
But this raises the question - why was it left to local officials, some of whom
might not be fully aware or informed, to decide whether or not to evacuate
people?
The Ministry of National Defense has been roundly blamed for not sending out
troops until the third day of the typhoon, and then for not sending enough.
In the worst-hit village of Siaolin, where nearly 400 people are believed to
have been buried by a mudslide, it would not have made much difference. Sides
of mountains near the remote village located in a narrow valley at the
foothills of Alishan came crashing down on the village shortly after dawn on
Sunday, August 9. Residents said that due to damaged telecommunications lines,
no one outside knew, and help did not come until the next day.
Despite repeated questions from the media about what Ma was doing during the
days of the typhoon disaster, he has not answered them or revealed how much
information he was given.
"He didn't receive abundant information," said Yang.
But that remains unclear.
"Did they [the government] have sufficient information? Or did they have the
necessary information but made wrong judgments?" asked Ethan Tseng Yi-ren, a
political scientist from the National Sun Yat-sen University in southern
Taiwan's Kaohsiung City, traditionally a DPP stronghold. "If we have such types
of civil servants who have the necessary information but still failed to act
accordingly, then that's bad."
While Ma has vowed to launch a thorough investigation and punish those found
guilty of dereliction of duty, the media have also questioned whether he will
punish himself, with some people calling for his resignation.
People, perhaps long frustrated by a government system notorious for being
bureaucratic and unresponsive, are venting their frustration. Perhaps because
Ma tends to apologize easily and appears to be caring, he is getting an earful.
"What's interesting is that people who are traditionally critical of the
[ruling] Kuomintang (KMT) and don't watch TVBS, which traditionally supports Ma
Ying-jeou, are now watching TVBS instead of the TV channels that tend to
criticize Ma. They are interested in seeing how TVBS is scolding Ma Ying-jeou,"
said Tseng.
The fallout from the typhoon would have an impact on elections in December for
county and city leaders, Tseng said. "It will definitely have a negative impact
on the KMT," said Tseng. "But it's unclear how great the impact will be because
people are also upset at local officials in the south."
At play in the unfettered criticism of Ma's government are lingering suspicions
about his intentions in building closer economic and trade ties with China,
Tseng said. Since taking over as president, Ma and the KMT have adopted
unprecedented measures to improve cross-strait ties, including launching direct
flights, shipping and postal links, allowing thousands of Chinese tourists to
visit each day, and opening the door to Chinese investment in about 100
sectors, including public infrastructure.
What he plans to do next is actually what most worries Taiwanese suspicious of
China - negotiations on an "economic cooperation framework agreement" (ECFA).
Similar to a free-trade agreement, talks will begin with China in October over
the ECFA and Ma hopes to reach agreement by next year.
Ma believes this is important so that Taiwan does not lose out as China signs
free-trade agreements with other countries, giving them a competitive edge in
lower tariffs or tariff-free trade with Beijing. But critics worry it will not
only hurt Taiwanese local industry but also harm the island's sovereignty.
"Politics is involved in some of the criticism against Ma Ying-jeou. Taiwanese
people won't say 'It's because I'm unhappy with your China policy', but of
course in the back of their mind, they think this," Tseng said. "Come October,
when ECFA negotiations begin, the opposition party will use this opportunity to
say this government is not worthy of trust."
The DPP and its chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen have been conspicuously absent in the
typhoon debates. That's intentional, said Tseng, as they do not want the public
to view the criticisms against Ma as the two parties going at each other's
throat again.
What's missing in the debate, analysts said, is an honest, objective look at
what is wrong with a system that allowed hundreds of villagers to be buried in
a mudslide during a major typhoon. Even China, which Taiwan often looks down on
in terms of its standards of governance, routinely evacuates as many as a
million people when typhoons approach.
To be fair, this typhoon was extraordinary. It was slow-moving, staying three
to four days, unlike most typhoons which leave within a day or two. And while
it was not considered a powerful typhoon, it brought much more rain than most
typhoons.
Still, unless the public and the government look at the root of the problem,
instead of just calling for resignations of this or that official, the problem
could reoccur, analysts said.
Tough questions will also have to be answered - including whether Taiwan will
suffer more such extreme weather conditions due to climate change and whether
it should allow people to live in dangerously located mountain villages.
"Everyone is criticizing Ma's ability, but by not analyzing why this typhoon
caused so much damage, the people at the grassroots will suffer again," said
Tseng.
The media focus of late is allegations that Premier Liu Chao-shiuan had the
nerve to get a hair cut or have his hair dyed on August 11, at the height of
the rescue effort, and that the Executive Yuan's secretary general Hsueh
Hsiang-chuan, who is responsible for coordination between ministries, had a
Taiwanese Father's Day dinner with his father-in-law on August 8 when the
typhoon brought flooding to the south. Hsueh's initial defensive remarks were,
"It was Father's Day! And we only ate yam porridge."
Defense Minister Chen Chao-min was criticized for not dispatching soldiers in
time and dispatching too few troops to rescue typhoon victims, while Vice
Foreign Minister Andrew Hsia was slammed for initially rejecting international
aid.
Hsueh, Chen and Hsia have all tendered their resignations, but the premier has
not accepted them yet.
President Ma said he will not resign, insisting his duties were needed at this
time. He has promised the results of an investigation into wrongdoings in the
disaster-relief fiasco will be revealed next month, and that for now, the focus
should be on resettlement and reconstruction.
Analysts said it's unlikely that Ma will step down. According to Taiwan's
constitution, he must serve his full term. And if the opposition party were to
try to recall him, it would need a majority in the Legislative Yuan, which it
does not have as Ma's KMT party controls more than two-thirds of the seats.
What Ma will have to do in the coming days is take a hard look at his cabinet,
including the premier, and see if changes need to be made, analysts said. From
the beginning, his team has been criticized as being inexperienced. Liu, while
reputed as a clean official, has only served a short stint as transportation
minister in the 1990s. Coming from a chemistry background, almost all his
experience is in academia, where he headed two universities.
According to the constitution, the president is in charge of defense and
foreign affairs, while the day-to-day running of the government is left to the
premier. Ma, a trained lawyer, has been strict about following this formula,
but time and again he has shot himself in the foot for doing so, taking
criticism afterwards for not being on hand and involved at a time when the
highest-ranking leader was needed.
What Ma has done the most since the typhoon disaster struck is to apologize. He
has also met with many bereaved family members, not shying from their cries of
anger and complaints, and is promising a variety of assistance, including
living stipends, temporary housing, rental subsidies and school meals. It seems
to be making a difference, at least to some people, even though the media
continue to be tough on him.
The host and guests speakers of a local TV station's on-air panel discussion on
Wednesday to criticize Ma were surprised when the first several incoming
calls from the audience criticized the media, not the president. "All you do is
spend all day scolding Ma Ying-jeou. Let's unite and not differentiate between
blue [KMT] or green [DPP]," said one woman on the phone.
Ultimately, Ma's survival will depend on whether he can meet people's demands
and fix the problems in Taiwan's disaster response system, said analysts. "I
think he is capable of doing this," Yang said. "He's putting his ears to the
ground."
Cindy Sui is a freelance journalist based in Taipei.
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