In late April Taiwan's main opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) selected Tsai Ing-wen, the party's leader, as its candidate for the 2012 presidential election. Ms Tsai is the first woman to be nominated as a presidential candidate in Taiwan's history and will stand against the current president, Ma Ying-jeou of the ruling Kuomintang (KMT). The DPP primary was contested by three candidates, Ms Tsai, Su Tseng-chang, and Hsu Hsin-liang, but the competition was primarily one between Ms Tsai and Mr Su, a former premier and the DPP's vice-presidential candidate in 2008. Although polling was extremely tight between the two leading candidates, the DPP selected Ms Tsai, a former professor and an expert on policy towards mainland China, over the more populist Mr Su. Although he is considered an energetic and optimistic campaigner, Mr Su is less experienced in the area of relations with China and foreign policy generally. The selection indicates the importance for the DPP of constructing an alternative platform to Mr Ma's foreign policy initiatives and his deepening of economic exchanges with China.

Ms Tsai showed early signs of posing a credible challenge to Mr Ma, according to public opinion polls conducted just after the DPP's nomination process. The Prediction Market Centre, a public-opinion survey unit at Taiwan's National Chengchi University, released a poll just after the DPP primary indicating that Ms Tsai was the favourite in a match-up against Mr Ma, although she was ahead by less than 1 percentage point. The strong showing is nonetheless striking. Mr Ma has been highly successful in enacting the main initiatives that he promised in his presidential election campaign, namely easing tensions with the mainland and launching a number of initiatives across the Taiwan Strait to boost the island's export-driven economy. Moreover, Mr Ma trounced the DPP's candidate in the 2008 presidential contest, securing 58% of the popular vote and winning back the presidency for the KMT after eight years.

Although early opinion polls are unreliable predictors, Ms Tsai has a real opportunity to capitalise on the perceived weaknesses of Mr Ma-most notably the perception that he is slow to react to public concerns and heads a government that tends to vacillate when the public calls for clear action. In late April, for example, his administration caved in to pressure from environmentalists and opposition politicians when it withdrew support for a naphtha-cracking petrochemicals plant in Changhua county, after environmental assessments revealed that it could have a damaging impact on wetlands in the area. Although Mr Ma has been keen to highlight his environmental credentials in recent years (something that would have provided him with a credible reason for opposing the plant), the decision followed official statements stating that the construction of the plant was vital for Taiwan's economy. The government's change of direction on the issue therefore looks like a policy change driven by populist motives. Mr Ma's administration suggested that the plant could instead be located overseas.