Is Ma's Taiwan presidency going down the drain, or can complaints lead to repairs?

There’s been much talk in Taipei lately about whether the Ma Ying-jeou presidency is circling the drain. Perhaps it’s fitting then to use the saga of a broken urinal as a guide for how to get his administration back on track.

The urinal in question was no ordinary receptacle, but one attached to a toilet wall at one of Taiwan’s most popular and politically-symbolic tourist attractions: the National Dr Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. The monument to the founder of modern China is visited by nearly eight million people annually, including tens of thousands of mainland tourists.

For more than six months, the urinal had sat idle. That is, until a tourist who used it in July was apparently annoyed to find the urinal still broken when he visited the memorial again this month.

On January 3, that tourist posted online a photograph of the urinal and its out-of-order sign. The tourist said the hall’s failure to handle such a small matter was emblematic of its mismanagement. Local newspapers naturally picked up the story.

That is how it landed on the desk of the island’s premier, Jiang Yi-huah, a Kuomintang ally of Ma’s. The premier was reportedly furious. Cabinet spokeswoman Cheng Li-wen described him as “indignant”.

The premier called Culture Minister Lung Ying-tai to express his displeasure and immediately demanded the urinal be repaired. Jiang believed such a case illustrated inefficiency in the administration and was therefore unacceptable, Cheng said.

Some people mocked Jiang’s attention to such trivial matters, saying a man of his position should be focused on the big picture. But Jiang’s spirited personal response demonstrated exactly the kind of leadership Ma has been lacking.