March 29 (Bloomberg) -- ``I never staged this shooting incident and there's nothing to hide.''
It's not a defense Chen Shui-bian hoped to be offering a week after his re-election as Taiwan's president. Yet there he was Saturday, struggling to convince this island's 23 million he didn't fake an assassination attempt to win sympathy votes.
To no avail. Taipei is rife with rumors about ``Bulletgate.'' And the controversy speaks volumes about Chen's lack of credibility with voters.
``It really is like one of the Oliver Stone movies,'' said William Chiu, 48, one of 500,000 protesters who took to the streets Saturday, calling for the truth about the March 20 election and the March 19 shooting incident.
Events here really do have all the makings of one of Stone's conspiracy-laced films. The director of ``JFK,'' ``Nixon'' and ``The People Vs. Larry Flynt'' might be wise to start working on a flick titled ``Taiwan's Bulletgate.''
Here's the script so far:
The president and vice president are shot while riding together in an open-top jeep. Yes, together. A bullet miraculously grazes Chen's stomach as the jeep zooms along. His No. 2 lucks out, too -- with a flesh wound to the knee.
No witnesses see a shooter. Chen isn't whisked to the closest hospital but one at which a supporter is chairman. A state of emergency is called, keeping many soldiers and police officers from voting. Some 330,000 ballots are invalidated. The incumbent wins by a mere 30,000 votes out of 13 million cast.
Dallas-Taipei?
It's no wonder JFK-like conspiracy theories are raging here. Did Chen stage the shooting? Was China, which views Taiwan as a renegade province and dislikes Chen, involved? Were supporters of challenger Chan Lien behind it? Or did gamblers have a hand in it? After all, media here in Taipei reported that tens of millions of U.S. dollars were bet on the election.
Farfetched, perhaps, but myriad hypotheses are coursing through Taiwan, dominating news coverage and teahouse conversations. All this would be more entertaining if the stability of one of Asia's most geopolitically important places weren't at risk.
``Come on, you can't tell me the shooting wasn't staged!'' yells taxi driver Chou Ken-Te, 54, pounding on the steering wheel as he navigates the streets of Taipei.
`Magic Bullet'
Chou, like virtually every Taiwanese you ask, can't get enough of debating the ``magic bullet'' that hit Chen, much like the one said to hit U.S. President John F. Kennedy in 1963. There's even a JFK-like single shooter theory versus a multiple shooter one.
Television news programs are airing round-the-clock computer simulations of the Chen shooting to determine where the shooter was hiding. There's even a role in all this for former O.J. Simpson murder trial investigator Henry Lee, who's been tapped to help out here.
Such speculation gets at a bigger and more disturbing point: a lack of trust in Chen. It almost doesn't matter who was behind the assassination attempt. What does it say about the president when so many Taiwanese believe it was staged as a publicity stunt? There's no hard evidence of that and authorities are investigating the incident.
Questions
While Chen's razor-thin victory was certified Friday, the 53- year-old may never shake legitimacy questions. He won't have much of a mandate to revive the economy or alter the island's relationship with China. Protests Saturday showed that even some his supporters are less than enthused by his leadership.
``At this point, it doesn't matter who won the election,'' said protester Chiu, who voted for Chen. ``What matters is that we can believe the results, and I no longer believe Chen.''
A wild card in all this is China. Officials in Beijing have a poor track record of influencing politics beyond its borders. By saying Friday it may interfere in the crisis if it escalated, China seemed to unify Taiwan's political parties.
It was ironic in the aftermath of last year's SARS crisis, when China barred Taiwan from observer status in the World Health Organization. Then, it put politics ahead of the health of Taiwan's population. And now China is concerned for the well-being of its Taiwanese brothers and sisters?
The gesture backfired. Many of Saturday's protesters were annoyed by China's comments and spoke of the need for a more transparent democratic system in Taiwan. That hardly bodes well for China's argument that Taiwan's return to the mainland is inevitable.
China's handiwork seemed to prod Chen to bow to demands for a recount of the election and establish an independent task force to probe the assassination attempt. It also seemed to encourage the opposition Nationalist Party to call off a seven-day protest.
Yet in order to stay the course toward independence, Chen must prove he's a leader, not just a politician determined to hang on to power at any cost. Judging from the raw feelings among voters here in Taipei, Chen has much convincing to do.
To contact the writer of this column:
William Pesek Jr. in Taipei at wpesek@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: March 28, 2004 20:08 EST