Having refused to become the running mate of all presidential candidates hopeful, President of Academia Sinica Lee Yuan-jer (李遠哲), the only native Taiwanese Nobel Prize Laureate yet, once again accidentally attracts the media's attention: whether or not he would endorse Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the DPP in the coming would-be critical election.
The timing of this intriguing campaign episode seems obvious. As the trio each receives roughly one quarter of the vote in the poll, the rest are either undecided or reluctant to reveal their preference. Given this tight competition, it is only rational for the candidates to tactically solicit any additional votes they can in this extremely chopped-up market of election. It is even speculated that no more than 5% of the votes are enough to warrant the victory.
Internationally renowned, the innocent non-political man Lee is endowed with the image of integrity, commitment, and devotion to the land. Being disgruntled by the conservative resistance in his efforts to reform the deteriorated educational system, he is further frustrated by the idle and incompetent bureaucracy and selfish and insincere politicians in the aftermath of the September 21 earthquake. His unwilling disillusion must have also arisen from witnessing the vulgar electoralism found in the process of democratization.
Nonetheless, beyond his credential, it is not at all clear what Lee is up to. Is his resentment merely against the incumbent KMT in the binary government-opposition party alternation? Is he essentially adverse to the mainstream cartel between the KMT and the DPP? Or is he intrinsically antipathetic to the corruptive political establishment? Finally, if he is disinclined toward politics per se, one is curious how he is going to reconcile himself with the political melody in addition to extraneous, if not irrelevant, condemnation.
As an agent of change, the refreshed Lee has yet prove to the public that he is ready to covert himself from a comfort outsider to an inside shaker or breaker of the political arena. Furthermore, he needs to express whether he is determined to lend his vote and obtain the mandate himself, or rather he is simply inclined to be patronized as an apprentice engaged in routine politics. To avoid premature manipulation, Lee has reasonably chosen to remain vague regarding his favored candidate. By so doing, however, he is actually undermining his own unstained icon as the ultimate sage in Taiwan.
So far, while both Lien Chan (連戰) and James Soong (宋楚瑜) are carefully assessing any potential damages to them, Chen has stayed away from disclosing any explicit confirmation of Lee's acceptance as the prime minister once elected.
Nonetheless, whoever wins over Lee's heart is destined to flick a wound on to his own camp: no other within the party is able to garner the same amount of contribution to the ballot as Lee would be. Also, to guard against creating the impression of abusing the unblemished Laureate, he has to explain whether the future prime minister is going to be simply the chief of the staff under the current constitutional framework.
Of course, one is not predisposed to vote with Professor Lee without slightest reservation. In a recent interview, having been impressed by the dramatic process of integration in Western Europe, he appears to be optimistically talked into the misperception that globalization has heralded the end of the nation-state and hence the declining importance of sovereignty. The experience of the European Union would testify to the contrary.
As a latest populist figure, are you ready to tame and ride the tiger of politics, or rather to be swallowed by the sea of political maneuvering? Once you choose to enter into the business of politics, no longer theatrical laurel will be automatically self-imposed as a cynical intellectual. Regardless, politics is neither the Styx nor the Lethe. Welcome to the real world of politics.