The Kuomintang, launched by Dr. Sun Yat-sen who founded the Republic of China in 1912, is a Stalinist party. Its central standing committee, like the politburo of the former Soviet Russian Communist Party, is all powerful. The Chinese Communist Party, that rules China, also has a politburo, whose standing committee members run the government in Beijing.

Three days later, on Tuesday, Ma had two of the 32 members of his central standing committee ousted for buying votes to get elected. The party's disciplinary committee found them guilty of having sent red wine and salted mackerel in exchange for votes from members of its central committee. The disciplinarians disqualified the pair and pledged to continue investigating the alleged widespread election rigging. Anyone found to have committed bribery, the disciplinary committee threatens, would be disqualified as well. Ma fully supports the continuation of this probe.

On Thursday night, one of the remaining 30 members announced he would give up his seat on the committee, which he charged was corruptively elected. Chiu Yi, a lawmaker at large and the nemesis of former President Chen Shui-bian, made the announcement at an evening talk show on TVBS, starting a wave of mass resignation of central standing committee members, which culminated in their quitting en masse to pave the way for Chairman Ma to call a makeup election. The new party chairman presided over an emergency meeting of the committee on Monday to declare its demise and a new election, scheduled for November 14.

It's the party reform a la Ma the Mister Clean. Ma vowed to root out corruption, including vote-buying of course, when he was minister of justice from 1993 to 1996. He quit that job, for he couldn't fulfill his vow. A man of probity, Ma couldn't bear the stigma of being indicted for corruption in connection with misappropriations of his expense account while he was mayor of Taipei in 1998-2006. He resigned as chairman of the Kuomintang on the day he was formally charged by a Taipei district prosecutor in 2007 and declared candidacy for president. He was tried and finally absolved by the Supreme Court shortly after he won last year's presidential election.

One of his top campaign promises was to stamp out corruption not just in government but in his own party as well. It is vital for him to keep his promise. He ran for party leadership and took back the office he gave up more than two years ago. The makeup election of the nerve center of the Kuomintang is the first step taken by him to undertake the KMT's reformation into a totally clean and transparent party.

Reform is easier said than done. History tells us all but a few reforms have ended in disaster in China. Remember Mao Zedong's “Great Leap Forward” reform movement in the late 1950s? Or his Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution that lasted for close to a decade? Deng --iaoping's open China policy, an economic reform, seems to have succeeded. Taiwan had a highly successful one; the land reform of 1949, albeit coupled with the bloody February 28 Incident of 1947, helped foster the movement for independence.

Nobody knows if Ma's party reform is well underway until after a new central standing committee is elected and installed. The disqualified pair cannot run. But those who may have received gifts from the duo may stand for membership in the new politburo, while the disciplinary committee continues its probe into corruption among them. On the other hand, people suspect members of the central committee were elected by bribery. There are altogether 210 of them, of whom many are said to have been given red wine, salted mackerel and whatnots. Some party delegates to the national congress on October 17 may also have received these gifts. In other words, the suspicion of wrong-doing can't be totally wiped out after the new central standing committee is formed.

If there were few men and women of proven incorruptibility in the new lineup of the central standing committee, the people would have no trust in the ruling Kuomintang which the opposition Democratic Progressive Party equates with corruption and money politics. The chances are that many of the old faces in the just dismissed politburo may show up again in the new.

Be that as it may, Ma has passed the point of no return on his way to ridding the ruling party of corruptible elements. The task ahead is truly daunting. The use of bribery to get elected delegates to the national congress to elect the party's central committee is deep-rooted. It became especially rampant after Taiwan's democratization. A bad habit dies hard.

We take our hats off to President Ma for his bravery to meet the challenge and the strong determination with which he is carrying out the Kuomintang's house-cleaning. There is no guarantee that the reform will be successful. But the start has been made, and we wish him every success.

For a reformed Kuomintang will give Taiwan a clean and capable government and set a strong example for the main opposition party to follow. Then there will be hope for clean politics in our democracy.