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Updated Wednesday, September 9, 2009 9:12 am TWN, The China Post news staff

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On the resignation of Premier Liu Chao-shiuan

Well, Ma didn't give himself up. He certainly isn't the “gutsiest world leader” as dubbed by the magazine that was founded by Duke University students to quell the thirst of “knowledge junkies” in need of “their fix.” In a sense, Liu is a scapegoat. He is being sacrificed for Ma's survival as president, and incoming Kuomintang chairman, which Ma is set to become on October 17.

Animosity shown by the public against President Ma, roused by the political commentators, will subside following the resignation en masse of the Liu Cabinet. They demanded that a politician, not a bureaucrat, head the Cabinet. Wu is a politician. But the hostility will flare up in no time when the new Wu administration starts tackling reconstruction in earnest.

We do not say Wu is as incapable as Liu the bureaucrat has been said to be. He may recruit an entirely new Cabinet. He may accept most of the holdovers, who are not bad bureaucrats after all. But the new administration simply can't do any better than the outgoing one.

The truth is that no one can do the reconstruction work to the satisfaction of many pampered voters. They will be satisfied only when the Taiwan economy is humming without them biting the bullet to work hard to earn it.

One thing President Ma must know is that Taiwan is almost ungovernable. He will be criticized for whatever he does. When he tries to further improve relations between Taiwan and China, he is blamed for attempting to sell Taiwan out. When he was late in visiting the flood victims, he was taken to task for his supposed lack of concern. When he apologized, critical commentators said he was merely putting up a show.

Can Ma do anything to repel all the verbal attacks?

Unlikely.

No matter what he does, Ma will come under fire for being a “superior man of academics,” one who lives in an ivory tower out of touch with the real lives of the great masses. He is replacing the unpopular Liu with Wu the politician, who served as magistrate of Nantou and mayor of Kaohsiung before. When the Wu Cabinet becomes unpopular, Ma will have to appoint a new one. And another one when that new administration becomes unpopular. And another, until 2012.

That is how many a political commentator predicts Taiwan politics under President Ma will develop. A number of them have called on Ma to quit as president lest he might be ousted by a really fed-up electorate. One former Redshirt leader is planning to call back his comrades to take to the streets tomorrow to demand that Ma step down or be impeached.

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