The only interesting piece of post-election news on TV yesterday morning was Ms Chow Mei-ching, wife of President-elect Ma Ying-jeou, taking the bus to work with three security officers escorting her and looking embarrassed because of the media attention.

This is a far cry from the previous two presidential elections in 2000 and 2004, when unhappy supporters of the defeated candidates were still out on the streets protesting against the results.

One reason for this is Mr Ma's wide margin of victory.

In 2000, his party, the Kuomintang (KMT), had lost power for the first time after more than five decades in power; while in 2004, many suspected that an alleged assassination attempt against incumbent President Chen Shui-

bian was a ploy to win sympathy votes. In those two races, the winners and losers were separated by only one or two percentage points.

Another reason for the calmness this time is that Taiwan's democracy after four direct presidential elections is becoming more normal.

The voter turnout this time was 76.3 per cent, lower than the 82.7 per cent in 2000 and 80.3 per cent in 2004.

The cooling of the people's enthusiasm for politics is what analysts call a sign of a 'normalising' democracy.

'A slightly lower voter participation rate is more normal,' Taiwan-watcher Shelley Rigger told The Straits Times.

'People in Taiwan for a long time were hyper-mobilised for political activity because it was democratising and democratisation was an exciting process and it makes people want to participate,' Professor Rigger observed, explaining the fervour displayed in past elections.

She said that this had made the people susceptible to negative phenomena such as ethnic politics.

At a forum on Sunday, Professor Emile Sheng of Soochow University said that the decline in enthusiasm for politics was good for Taiwan's democratic development.

'People become more rational and base their voting decisions on rationality and less on emotions and identity issues,' he said.

He added that Taiwan was transitioning 'from a young democracy to a more mature democracy', pointing out that the electoral cycle now was shorter than in 2004.

Four years ago, the election process went on for 11/2 years, while this time it was just six months. Rallies started a full month before the election four years ago, but now the big rallies started just one week before polling day.

While the referendums four years ago attracted a lot of public response, this time round, people were lukewarm towards them.

'Taiwanese people are demonstrating a more individual citizenship that is independent of the agenda set by the media and the politicians, and that's a sign of a more mature democracy,' he noted.

But Professor Larry Diamond of the Hoover Institution pointed out that there was still a lot of gamesmanship in Taiwan politics.

He gave as an example the election incident in which four KMT lawmakers barged into the Taipei campaign office of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Frank Hsieh, causing Mr Ma's popularity rating to drop.

'Having one of the KMT legislators say that he'll commit suicide if Mr Ma loses is not indicative of high political maturity,' he said.

Negative campaigning in Taiwan, Prof Rigger noted, sometimes went beyond 'what we can feel good about as advocates of democracy'.

A case in point was the green card issue in this election: Mr Ma was accused of holding a valid permanent residency card in the United States when it was obvious that he was no longer a permanent resident there.

Professor Lin Huo-wang of the National Taiwan University was also critical of the scare-mongering that the DPP used in its campaign, saying it reflected a shallow political culture.

Still, for all its flaws, 'democracy is normal in Taiwan today', Prof Rigger said.

suinoi@sph.com.sg