DESPITE the relatively large number of dissenting votes, Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui's re-election as Chairman of the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) was a remarkable consolidation of his grip on the party. But it was not a victory of his own making or a reflection of his renewed popularity. It was a fortuitous by-product of an otherwise damaging split in the once-monolithic KMT.
The departure of the Nationalists' leading dissidents to form the rival New Party, reduced the strength of the internal opposition to Mr Lee and his Mainstream faction. But it has given him little more than a breathing space to get his policies and leadership back on track before the dissatisfaction starts to gather momentum.
Outside Taiwan, the New Party has raised most comment by its attacks on President Lee's lack of commitment to reunification with the mainland. Yet the six-member breakaway party's main targets are the corruption and money politics that have the KMT in thrall to big corporations and powerful clans. Taking its cue from Japan, the New Party hopes to shake the KMT's old guard out of its complacency.
In the short term, the split may prove a setback for political reform. The revolt has been much smaller than its Japanese counterpart. Far from weakening the party, the departure of the dissenters just one week before the KMT's 14th Party Congress this week allowed President Lee to put reform and cleaner government on the back burner, and concentrate on wheeling and dealing to maintain control.
Within a few weeks, however, he will have to begin showing a new kind of leadership. Taiwan faces important municipal and provincial elections in December in which the New Party is contemplating a strategic alliance with the main opposition Democratic Progressive Party.
The two groups' positions on unification with China are diametrically opposed. But, like the KMT Mainstream itself, both also recognise it is too divisive an issue upon which to campaign. Instead, taking a leaf out of the Japanese book, they will concentrate instead on the one issue that unites them: the demand for cleaner government and an end to gerontocratic money politics.