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DPP candidate Frank Hsieh |
In the glare of the cameras, the plain-spoken Frank Hsieh has portrayed himself as a son of the soil and tries to cast his rival, Ma Ying-jeou, as an outsider because of his mainland China heritage.
The sometimes sarcastic candidate of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which has held the presidency for the past eight years, also likes to remind voters his rival was indicted last year for misusing government funds. But Ma has since been acquitted. Ironically, Hsieh and three other leading DPP figures have also been accused of misusing government funds, and cleared by a district court of the charges.
Hsieh who has based his campaign on stressing Taiwan's national identity,is also fond of ridiculing Ma's plans for a Greater China common market styled after the European Union, delivering his attacks as easily in the self ruled island's dialect as he does in Mandarin Chinese.
Hsieh may be is out of order for negative campaigning, and for overlooking the more serious issue of economic development. Hsieh, seeks a cautious opening of trade, tourism and investment ties with China, coupled with more domestic social welfare to help the island economy.
The DPP nominee also campaigns more emphatically on his Taiwan roots and belief in Taiwan's autonomy, making use of the fact that Ma once carried a U.S. green card, insinuating a lack of loyalty to Taiwan.
Hsieh has spoken bluntly about China's political system as authoritarian, but he did once invite Chinese President Hu Jintao to visit an outlying island of Taiwan.
The former dissident lawyer had helped found the Democratic Progressive Party in defiance of a ban by the regime.
That was in 1986, and 14 years later the DPP took power for the first time when Chen Shui-bian swept to power as president. Now Chen's maximum two terms is up, but Hsieh will have a hard time trying to convince voters to maintain the DPP's hold on the presidency.
A former school gymnast who also plays the flute, Hsieh is married with a son and a daughter.
The 62 year-old studied law at the prestigious National Taiwan University and did a master's degree at Kyoto University in Japan. He joined politics following December 1979 protests in Kaohsiung, Taiwan's second city, when hundreds of people were injured in clashes with police and scores of dissident leaders were rounded up.
The demonstrations crushed by the then ruling KMT government, were the first public expression of dissent and proved a catalyst for many future leaders. Chen and Hsieh were defence lawyers and Vice President Annette Lu was one of the jailed dissidents.
Hsieh was a member of Taipei city council from 1981 to 1989 and sat in the national parliament from 1989 until 1996, when he was nominated by the DPP as running mate to Pergn Ming-ming's unsuccessful bid for the presidency.
In 1998 he became mayor of Kaohsiung and was re-elected in 2002, a job in which he has been credited with boosting the city's international profile. However, he is under investigation for his alleged role in a high-profile subway construction scandal and several other graft cases.
He was appointed to the premiership but stepped down in January 2006 after less than a year in the job following sweeping DPP losses in local elections, and also failed in an attempt that year to become mayor of Taipei.
Despite trailing in opinion polls, it is possible that Hsieh could defy the odds and score an upset.
Analysts say the KMT's win in January was on the back of voter turnout of just 58.3%, so a higher turnout in the presidential polls could see the DPP and Hsieh performing better.
Hsieh, a former Taiwan premier and mayor of its No. 2 city, Kaohsiung, has also been distancing himself from the highly unpopular outgoing president Chen Shui-bian and had signaled he would be less confrontational than Chen was towards Beijing.
That has drawn criticism from pro-independence figures in his own party who fear Taiwan is already too close to China economically.
If Hsieh somehow manages to win, he'll have to contend with a legislature more heavily dominated by the China-friendly KMT. CNA/sf
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