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Background: Ma Ying-jeou, 57, the Nationalist Party candidate elected president of Taiwan yesterday, is a former justice minister and mayor of Taipei. Ma is the son of a midlevel Nationalist official and was groomed for government from an early age. He has a doctorate in law from Harvard University. He has competed as a triathlete. Ma was named justice minister in 1993 and was elected mayor of the Taiwan capital in 1998. In 2005, the Nationalist Party selected him as its chairman, positioning him as its 2008 presidential candidate.
Domestic affairs: Ma presented himself during the campaign as an exemplar of integrity. As justice minister under Nationalist President Lee Teng-hui from 1993 to 1996, Ma was regarded as Taiwan's chief corruption prosecutor, and he was transferred to another post after party officials objected to his targeting some of their candidates in a campaign against vote-buying. He opposed his own party's allegations of vote fraud after Chen Shui-bian narrowly won reelection as president in 2004.
Foreign policy: The main issue in the election was Taiwan's relationship with Communist China, from which it split amid civil war in 1949. Ma wants closer commercial relations between the sides as a way of jump-starting the economy, and is committed to beginning regularly scheduled flights across the Taiwan Strait. He also wants to negotiate a peace treaty with Beijing, but has promised he will not discuss political union - as China wants - during his presidency.
SOURCE: Associated Press
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