With the Koumintang election due tomorrow, the KMT are busy with last minute preperations for the vote – with all the ballot papers sent out to the relevant authorities. Although the Taiwanese have a pretty well organised voting process[*], the problem that observers are worried about in this election is the question over who is eligible to vote. Since the KMT central committee decided that people who hadn’t paid their membership fee recently were still allowed to vote, they opened up the possibility of all sorts of lapsed members appearing to vote. There have already been arguments over the membership lists in some counties, and noone quite knows what will happen if large numbers of voters with moth-eaten old KMT membership cards turn up to find their names aren’t on the list.

The other danger for the election is a bit more uncontrollable … the first typhoon of the year is heading in the direction of Taiwan, and could make itself felt on Saturday – which may make voting interesting.

The polls still seem to show Ma with a slender lead – but each day seems to see more senior KMT members coming out in support of Wang, which could swing things decisively:

Meanwhile, the KMT’s old guard — top officials in the time of the rule of former President Chiang Ching-kuo — came out in support of Legislative speaker Wang.

Wang met with more than 100 retired generals in the Legislative Yuan, supported by KMT lawmaker John Chiang, a foreign relations expert and Chiang Ching-kuo’s illegitimate child along with lawmakers Hung Hsiu-chu and Tseng Yung-chuan. Lee Huan, a former premier who is almost 90 years old, Chen Chien-chung, a former Justice Minister who is 93, Soong Shih-hsuan, a former provincial party director who is in his mid-80s and Yu Chung-chi, a former Taipei City secretary general all gave the thumbs up for Wang.

To shore up the support of these senior members, Wang promised that he would “strictly toe Chiang Ching-kuo’s line.” in regard to the continuous debate about independence/reunification. Perhaps he was thinking of this quote by the former president from 1982:

“To talk peace with the Chinese Communists is to invite death. This is an agonizing, blood-stained lesson that we and many other Asian countries have learned”

* The one positive to come out of last years post-election mayhem was a ringing endorsement of the voting system in Taiwan. I don’t know how many countries have had a complete recount of every vote, and such an inquisition into every detail of the process, but I doubt many would stand up to it as well as Taiwan’s system.