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Updated Friday, August 28, 2009 9:22 am TWN, The China Post news staff

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Ma Ying-jeou, agonist

President Ma did not defend Premier Liu for his lackluster performance in handling Typhoon Morakot, but he has shown no signs of sending Liu packing, for the sake of political stability. “The most important job at present is relief and reconstruction,” Ma stressed at a conference held Friday in Kaohsiung County, one of the seven hard-hit areas in central and southern Taiwan. He and Liu promised to present the first “report card” on disaster relief early next month.

Clearly, Ma is struggling to survive the worst political crisis that could end his dream for a second term, as warned by legislator Hung Hsiu-chu. While it is too early to write the political obituary for him, the writing is on the wall if the president keeps insisting on having his own way and refusing to listen to the voices of his constituents.

There is no denying that Ma Ying-jeou is clean, honest, and learned — rare traits in Taiwan's politics. But these are no guarantee for a good and competent president, who must be able to respond to emergencies correctly and promptly; to “answer the phone at 3 a.m.” as commander-in-chief.

Morakot caught Ma and his team flat-footed. The entire government was unprepared and most government officials treated the disaster as business as usual. President Ma, a Harvard-educated LLD, refused to declare a national emergency on the grounds that laws are already in place to deal with natural disasters. The Foreign Ministry initially refused foreign help. Military mobilization for rescue was also initially slow compared with China's People's Liberation Army after the Sichuan earthquake last year. While China's destructive quake galvanized the entire nation, Taiwan's floods and mudslides tore the island apart.

In a sense, however, Morakot may not be all that bad for Taiwan if President Ma could be “humble” enough, as he has promised to be, to learn from it. First and foremost, he must admit and realize that his team is weak. He must open up his heart and mind to recruit the most able and the best to his administration, not just those like-minded and the mediocre who are loyal to him.

It is not surprising, therefore, to hear cries in the wilderness, voices from some victims questioning why James Soong, the able and popular former governor of Taiwan, was absent? They obviously missed Soong and other good, empathetic public servants who really cared about them and were able to help them. If that question could be honestly answered, Ma would be much better off, and so would Taiwan's 23 million people.

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