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Macau, China — Taiwan's political parties are busy with primary elections ahead of next year's presidential election, with the pan-blue and pan-green camps each struggling to come up with a winning candidate. President Chen Shui-bian managed to maintain unity within his Democratic Progressive Party by getting all four party hopefuls to sign an agreement that they would not run as independents if they fail to win the DPP nomination. The Kuomintang was unable to achieve such unity, with its top two candidates, former party Chairman Ma Ying-jeou and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng, at odds with one another and the party's Honorary Chairman Lien Chan unable to reconcile them. The party appears to be weakening and could be facing a split.

The two groups within the KMT represent two major divisions in society, the "native" Taiwanese, families of those who lived on the island before World War II, and the "mainlanders," who retreated to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-Shek's troops after he lost the civil war in 1949, and their descendants.

The election campaign threatens to split these two groups behind the two candidates. Although top party officials claim there are no ethnic divisions within the party, the problem is in fact very serious. If Ma and Wang fail to cooperate and end up competing against each other for the presidential role, the KMT will definitely split, most likely along these so-called "ethnic" lines -- although in reality the majority of people on both sides are ethnic Chinese.

The KMT, in power from 1945 to 2000, has always represented the mainlanders, a minority among the population. Native Taiwanese hold a deep grudge against the party based on a violent massacre of local people on Feb. 28, 1947, before Chiang fled to the island and while the KMT were still in power in the mainland. As president of Taiwan, Chiang also presided over an authoritarian regime that manipulated elections through preserving a one-party state.

Native Taiwanese provide the support base for the DPP, but many of them chose to join the KMT in order to support the stronger side during the long era of KMT rule. They form the sub-group within the party, currently headed by Wang Jin-pyng.

The mainlanders, headed by Ma Ying-jeou, will emphasize restoring power to the pan-blue camp, whereas the native group will try to manipulate the division and call for Taiwanese to vote for Taiwanese. Whichever one of the two candidates wins the KMT nomination, he will still need the other's support to win the election. If one decides to run as an independent, the KMT will be the loser.

The minority mainlander group within the KMT monopolized most of the island's political resources during its 50-year rule. As soon as there was a free election, this group lost its power -- similar to what happened to the white leadership in South Africa when multiracial elections were allowed. With the Taiwanese people almost evenly divided between the pan-blue and pan-green groups, unity is critical for the KMT. Unless Wang and Ma can cooperate -- by sharing a joint ticket as president and vice president, for example -- or Ma withdraws his candidacy after a conviction in the corruption trial he is now facing, the KMT will definitely lose the 2008 presidential election.

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(Dr. Chang Chuan-fong is Asia Director of the International Educational Foundation, based in Macau, China, and former associate professor in the Department of Education at Minghsin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan. @Copyright Chang Chuan-fong.)