Taiwan – Inauguration of President Ma

Ma Ying-Jeou, who was elected in March, was inaugurated yesterday as president of Taiwan.

President Ma’s inaugural address is available on the Taiwan government website. Also, in what is a first for this blog, to celebrate the 1000th visitor to the site and in eager anticipation of my visit there later this year, here is a link to a clip from the swearing-in ceremony that has been posted on You Tube.

President Ma chose Liu Chao-Shiuan as his prime minister in April – the president’s Kuomintang (KMT) party having won a majority at the January legislative election. Prime Minister Liu also took office yesterday. Prime Minister Liu was formally Vice Premier under a previous KMT government.

Taiwan has a president-parliamentary form of semi-presidentialism. There is a fine article on semi-presidentialism in Taiwan from Professor Wu Yu-Shan in the recent volume of Semi-presidentialism Outside Europe that I edited with Sophia Moestrup. In addition, a 2005 article by Professor Wu comparing the appointment of prime ministers in France, Russia and Taiwan is freely available from the website of the Taiwan Journal of Democracy and provides some valuable comparative insights.

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