Taiwan recovers from election
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ELIZABETH JACKSON: Taiwan is recovering a week after its presidential race culminated in a change of government.
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party will hand over the presidency in just less than two months after the opposition won a decisive victory.
Our North Asia correspondent Shane McLeod was in Taipei for the final days of the campaign.
SHANE MCLEOD: I probably should have realised what I was getting into when the ABC's Tokyo cameraman, Jun Matsuzono, told me to pack my earplugs.
Jun's covered every one of Taiwan's four direct elections for president, and when he told me that hearing protection was important, I knew he was passing on some useful information.
Taiwan's democracy, as Taiwan's politicians are fond of saying, is young and very vibrant. You can hear that as shorthand for colourful, enthusiastic, but above all, Taiwanese.
Over the course of the week I had the luck to attend not a few political rallies. And, if I might put on my consultant's hat for just a moment, there aren't too many things I'd change. Probably, just one.
These: (Sound of horn going off)
Portable air horns. Whether it's at the rally or the post-election celebration, those ear plugs are a useful accessory.
At first I wondered if it was some creative use of a device that everyone's required to keep at home. You know, some sort of civil defence, emergency horn, like a smoke alarm; but one that you can conveniently take with you to a political rally. I asked a few people but they didn't seem to hear me over the noise.
A bit of careful snooping at the next political experience and I found the source - a campaign volunteer, wending his way through the crowd, arms full of them.
That said, they do add a certain note to the political atmosphere. And as long as you've got the ear plugs, they're quite fine.
What they are evidence of is the enthusiasm that Taiwan's democracy inspires.
All over Taipei and the rest of the country for that matter, people have been showing their colours. Green was the colour of the Democratic Progressive Party, the one of outgoing president Chen Shui-bian. And blue is Kuomintang, the nationalist party that retreated to Taiwan after China's civil war and ruled over the island for the 50 years after that.
There are different shades. Green means you broadly support the idea of Taiwan becoming an independent country - the darker your shade of green the more committed you are to that ideal.
Blue means you're a supporter of the KMT's One China policy, which means you want to eventually reunify with the mainland - although exactly who'll be running the show when that happens perhaps indicates how blue you'd prefer to be.
Between those two points are some pretty stark contrasts, generating heated debates on the panel shows that dominate scores of news and political discussions on TV.
In the end, it was Ma Ying-jeou, the former Taipei mayor who managed to wrangle the fractious Kuomintang into a decisive victory.
For the supporters of the DPP, just eight years after their triumph in overturning 50 years of mostly autocratic rule, it was tragedy.
But as one political watcher explained, the positive thing is that now both parties have had a taste of winning and losing. For a nation held up as the model of Chinese democracy, that's no small thing.
The President-elect has made relations with the mainland his policy theme and says to boost the domestic economy Taiwan needs to be better integrated with its giant neighbour. In May, he'll be sworn in and given the chance to show whether his thinking is right.
This is Shane McLeod for Correspondents Report.
