onalist Party; the 1991 popular election of the National Assembly; and, in 1992, after the popular election of a new Legislature "the government began to display the characteristics of a representative and popular democracy, instituting constitutional reforms that were to assure citizen rights and the direct popular election of the president and vice president of the Republic" (Gregor 6).
The candidates for the presidency are the incumbent Nationalist Party president Lee Teng-hui, and the opposition leader of the Democratic Progressive Party, Peng Ming-min. Lee is a popular leader, held in high regard as a proponent of the democratization process and shaper of the "economic miracle" on Taiwan.
The candidacy of Peng is significant as an indicator of the depth of that democratization because Peng was previously "wanted by the Government as [a] subversive for promoting Taiwan's independence from mainland China" ("Taiwan Opposition" A5) in defiance of the Government position that Taiwan was China.
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