Kuomingtang chairman Ma Ying-jeou is facing his worst political crisis. Last week, He was accused of embezzling NT$ 1.4 billion dollars in special funds.Though denying any wrongdoing, his approval ratings plummeted to 43 per cent from 52 per cent a month ago, according to the latest opinion poll by TVBS. This came in stark contrast with 80-plus per cent he gained last year, when he became KMT chairman.

He even became the punch bag of his own party as fellow KMT members came out yesterday to cast doubt on his leadership skills and called on him to step down. Mr Ma, like a female Taiwanese critic pointed out in Phoenix TV, tasted the bitter downfall from heaven to the ground.

Since June, Taiwan has been hit by a string of corruption scandals that even implicated the island’s top leader Chen Shui-bian and his family. For Mr Chen, the snowballing receipt scandal is manna from blue camp. With public attention being diverted to Mr Ma, he could breathe more easily amid his own troubles. However, this still leaves people, especially a mainlander like me, bewildered: what’s wrong with Mr Ma, a charismatic politician known for his unsullied image? What’s wrong with Taiwan’s democracy at large? Where is the end of corruption scandals in Taiwan?

Many anti-democrats can’t wait to scramble with glee to pen another article that deplores Taiwan’s lost of justice or doubts the validity of democracy itself. Yet we should not take those scandals as manifestations of the intrinsic deficiency of democracy. Instead, they attest to the rapid transformation of Taiwan’s political landscape.

After the red tide led by Shi Ming-deh ebbed away, more Taiwanese people have come to realized that party rotation alone can’t bring true democracy to the island. More important, as a veteran analyst argues, is to get rid of institutional drawbacks and loopholes left by KMT’s one-party rule. The indictment of Wu Chu-chen will push for more transparency and independence in the juridical system. In that regard, Taiwan is on the right track.