Opinion polls showed Mr. Ma with a lead of up to 20 percentage points up through the middle of last week; Taiwan election laws do not allow the release of polls during the final 10 days before voting.

      But ongoing surveys by both parties show that more than half of that lead has evaporated. Mr. Ma is now ahead by a more slender margin because of Tibet and because of an embarrassing incident in which four Nationalist lawmakers were caught roaming through the Democratic Progressive Party’s headquarters, politicians and political analysts said.

      The closer race has reinvigorated the Democratic Progressive Party, where many had been deeply gloomy after losing badly a January vote for the legislature. “We have narrowed the gap significantly since January and I believe the final outcome will be very close,” said Hsiao Bi-khim, the international affairs director of Mr. Hsieh’s campaign.

      Su Chi, a Nationalist lawmaker and deputy campaign manager for Mr. Ma, said that Mr. Ma’s lead had narrowed in the last few days, but said this was to be expected.

      Many Democratic Progressive Party supporters did not vote in the legislative elections because they were disillusioned with corruption cases involving the current government, but are now becoming more active as Mr. Hsieh has campaigned aggressively, Mr. Su said, adding that he still thought Mr. Ma would win.

      Government ministers have helped Mr. Hsieh by drawing attention repeatedly to the difficulties in Tibet.

      Chen Ming-tong, the chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council, the government ministry responsible for relations with the mainland, called at a press conference on Thursday for the international community to put more pressure on China to begin a dialogue with the Dalai Lama, the leader of Tibet’s government in exile.

      If Mr. Hsieh actually wins – and he remains the underdog -- it would be perceived in Beijing as a high price to have paid for forcefully putting down demonstrations in Tibet.

      (OPTIONAL TRIM FROM HERE EXCEPT FOR WEB)

      Mr. Hsieh received an influential endorsement on Thursday. Lee Teng-hui, a former Nationalist President of Taiwan who now favors much greater political independence from the mainland, said that he would vote for Mr. Hsieh.

      Echoing a recent theme of Mr. Hsieh’s campaign, which has repeatedly highlighted the Nationalists’ history as an authoritarian party that ran Taiwan under martial law until 1987, Mr. Lee said that it would not be healthy for Taiwan’s democracy for the Nationalists to win the presidency after taking firm control of the legislature in January.

      The Nationalists and two affiliated minor parties together captured three-quarters of the seats in the legislature in elections then, in a crushing defeat for the Democratic Progressive Party. The Nationalists’ capitalized on voters’ concerns about stagnant household incomes and paralysis in contacts with the fast-growing mainland economy – two potent issues that could still produce a victory for Mr. Ma on Saturday.

      But an unusual fracas last week has helped the Democratic Progressive Party warn voters against giving too much power to the Nationalists. Four Nationalist lawmakers roamed through Mr. Hsieh’s campaign headquarters in an attempt to document whether the building lease complied with election laws.

      Mr. Hsieh’s aides trapped the four in an elevator, accused them of trespassing and called the police. A crowd of Democratic Progressive Party supporters formed and smashed the windshield of one of the police cars that rescued the four; Mr. Ma has apologized repeatedly since then, and the four, dubbed “the four idiots” by the Taiwanese media, bowed low in apology at a news conference as well.

      Entering the Democratic Progressive Party’s headquarters, “of course fed right into the D.P.P.’s hands,” said J. Bruce Jacobs, the director of the Taiwan research unit at Monash University in Australia.

      Mr. Hsieh has staked out a much more moderate position toward Beijing than Mr. Chen. Mr. Ma has taken fairly similar positions to Mr. Hsieh on economic issues and said that he would not seek political reunification with the mainland, still the goal of many Nationalists.

      Many of the two men’s proposals, like direct flights to the mainland, would require negotiations with Beijing, and are more likely to happen if Mr. Ma is elected because mainland officials have been reluctant to have formal contacts with the Democratic Progressive Party.

      The nightmare scenario for the Nationalists would be a repeat of the 2004 presidential election. Lien Chan, the Nationalist candidate, went into the final 10 days of the campaign with a commanding lead in polls, only to lose by a quarter of a percent.

      President Chen won reelection then partly because of the sympathy he received when he was lightly injured in a shooting incident while campaigning on the eve of voting. The police concluded a year later that the shooter had been a severely depressed man who drowned himself 10 days after the shots were fired.

上一页  [1] [2]