Taiwan's mercurial politics changed decisively on Tuesday. Kuomintang chairman Ma Ying-jeou was indicted on corruption charges, resigned as KMT chairman and announced he would run for the island's presidency next year - all in one dramatic day. But while Ma is a strong candidate, the conventional wisdom that the KMT will take back Taiwan's presidency and resolve its tense relationship with Beijing is now an open question.
No one in Taiwan believes that Ma is personally corrupt. But he and his party have lost the moral high ground over President Chen Shui-bian and the Democratic Progressive Party that they enjoyed briefly last autumn. That was when Mr Chen's wife, trusted henchmen and son-in-law were indicted or convicted, one after another, on corruption charges. All of Taiwan's politicians are now painted in varying shades of grey.
Like the president, Ma has been revealed to be an imperfect figure. The implications, however, are far more serious for him - and the few remaining advocates of a closer relationship with mainland China in Taiwan - than they are for Mr Chen.
Ma is now the only remaining credible national political figure in Taiwan who actually believes in the title Republic of China - the symbolic umbilical cord that connects Taiwan to the narrative of modern Chinese history.
His indictment and resignation as KMT chairman opens the way for his ethnic Taiwanese rivals - Ma is the son of refugees from mainland China - inside the KMT.
Politics in Taiwan is often intensely personal. Ma's main rival inside the party, legislative speaker Wang Jyn-ping, has been waiting quietly for his moment to strike ever since Ma trounced him in the first direct elections for KMT chairman, last year. Mr Wang is a political operator from Taiwan's deep south, with no ideological ties to the KMT and its mainland nationalist history. Now that Ma has been disgraced, Mr Wang will not hesitate to join up with whomever loses the intense ongoing struggle inside the DPP for next year's presidential nomination.
If, for example, ex-Kaohsiung mayor Frank Hsieh Chang-ting loses in the DPP primary to Premier Su Tseng-chang, then Mr Wang and Mr Hsieh could easily form an independent ticket with strong appeal to moderate Taiwanese voters. With support from Lee Teng-hui, the godfather of Taiwanese politics, the Wang-Hsieh ticket could split the KMT vote and create the sort of three-way election that the DPP has historically been able to exploit.