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That he was born in Hong Kong and his parents were from the mainland - part of a minority group of only 13 per cent of Taiwan's population - also shows that the ethnic identity issue is not as serious as perceived.
This second party alternation since 2000 when the DPP's Chen Shui-bian came to power also deepens Taiwan's democratic process, observers say.
Mr Ma won by a massive margin of 16 percentage points with 58.4 per cent of the vote over DPP candidate Frank Hsieh's 41.6 per cent, a surprise to pundits who expected a closer race.
The biggest factor is the poor performance of President Chen Shui-bian of the DPP and the corruption that plagued his administration, said Professor Emile Sheng of Taipei's Soochow University.
Also, the political gridlock caused by a legislature that is dominated by opposition parties did not help.
Insipid economic growth of an average of 4 per cent, coupled with economic restructuring problems of structural unemployment and widening income gap added to his woes.
The DPP's focus on ideology - including promoting the Taiwanese identity - is out of sync with the people's concerns over bread-and-butter issues.
'People just looked at the past eight years and decided that they wanted change,' said Professor Larry Diamond of the Hoover Institution, adding that they had two choices and decided that the other party was the 'change'.
Mr Ma's long-stay programmes which he started in the middle of last year - spending two-week stretches in southern Taiwan - also helped to bridge the divide between ethnic groups, rich and poor and north and south, noted Professor Huang Cheng of Taiwan Normal University.
His economics-heavy campaign platform appealed to the people suffering from shrinking incomes. His promises to restore a clean government and improve cross-strait relations - strained over the past eight years by Mr Chen's provocative pro-independence moves - also struck a chord with the people.
But with such a huge mandate, Mr Ma now has the equally huge responsibility of realising his campaign promises and meeting the people's high expectations.
One of his key challenges is 'restraining his own party and the instincts to return to one-party hegemony', noted Prof Diamond.
This is especially so after the KMT had also won three-quarters of the seats in the legislature in January, he said. 'Mr Ma is going to have to face down bad elements within his own party, and that's going to be one of his biggest challenges,' he said.
What Mr Ma needed to do to restore confidence in the government would be to put in place mechanisms for a strong and independent judiciary and rigorous institutions to curb corruption.
Another major challenge would be to negotiate economic exchanges with China without giving Beijing everything it wants politically.
Mr Ma is vulnerable to charges that he could concede too much to the Chinese. 'The mainland is going to need to recognise that if they want this government to succeed, they can't ask too much of it in terms of political concession,' observed Prof Diamond.
'And the best thing to happen now would be to move forward in a very pragmatic way towards direct flights and exchanges and commercial links,' he added.
Other analysts agreed but pointed out that Mr Ma's task has been complicated by China's crackdown of Tibetans protesting against Chinese rule, as this reminded Taiwanese of the negative aspects of cross-strait ties.
There are also concerns that his strong condemnation of Beijing over the Tibet crackdown and his threat to pull out of the Olympics have not endeared him to the Chinese.
The President-elect needs to enliven the economy very quickly, which is the top priority of the people. He will also need to heal the rifts created by the election campaign and pacify DPP supporters.
He has to remind them that 'he will be a president for every one in Taiwan and that he really means that', said Prof Rigger. Mr Ma indicated his intention to do so in his victory speech last night.
And going into office on May 20, he will have a honeymoon period within which he must deliver on some of his campaign promises, such as pushing for direct weekend charter flights by July.
The baton is in his hand and this avid jogger - who was seen jogging even on election day - knows he needs to take strides to first establish much closer economic ties with China, before he can revive Taiwan's economy.
