Result aids Lee's presidential bid

VOTERS boosted Lee Teng-hui's hopes of becoming Taiwan's first directly-elected president by allowing his ruling Kuomintang (KMT) to retain, if only barely, its majority in the Legislative Yuan at the weekend.

Campaigning by his conservative KMT rivals - former Judicial Yuan head Lin Yang-kang and ex-premier Hau Pei-tsun - may have helped the vote for the New Party by mobilising mainlander communities, but it remains unclear how much of a dividend their effort will bring for the March poll.

The pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), whose presidential candidate, Dr Peng Ming-min, is running with legislator Frank Hsieh Chang-ting, won 33 per cent of the vote, compared with 46 per cent for the KMT and 13 per cent for the New Party.

The fact that the KMT held on to its majority with 46 per cent of the vote reflects a strong basis for Mr Lee's campaign, said an analyst.

'With this base, and votes from nominal DPP supporters who will vote for Lee because he is the first Taiwan-born president, Lee will win with more than 50 per cent of the vote,' said Huang Hui-chen, executive director of the Institute for National Policy Research.

Professor Hsieh Fu-sheng of the National Chengchi University said that while the New Party was boosted by the results, 'the campaign had limited meaning for the Lin-Hau ticket as it was mostly an internal mobilisation of mainlander communities opposed to Lee'.