Taiwan News
Editorial
Date: 2016-05-19
By: Taiwan News, Staff Writer
May 20, 2016 was decided to be a historic date for Taiwan more than four months ago, when
A rehearsal for Presidential inauguration is taking place in front of the Presidential Office Building in Taipei on May 19, one day before the big day.
Taiwanese voters not only elected Democratic Progressive Party Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen as their president, but also gave her party an absolute majority at the Legislative Yuan for the first time in history.
The unprecedented coalescence of events should give the new president and her administration, with a Cabinet headed by Premier Lin Chuan, a welcome dose of efficiency to start off on an ambitious program of reform.
Debate has already started on what kind of a political honeymoon the new administration will be allowed to enjoy. An opinion poll released on the eve of the inauguration showed 66 percent of respondents having high expectations for Tsai and 61 percent for Lin, with 58 percent holding a positive view of the Cabinet as a whole, despite its earlier pejorative description as a collection of old men including too many holdovers from the Kuomintang era.
The biggest danger to the new administration might be the lack of patience of the public, and not just the reluctance of China to accept the will of the Taiwanese voters and engage with the island nation’s new government. [FULL STORY]
