Although Ma and Premier Wu Den-yih have rejected such a definition, it is clear from Ma's own intense campaigning in all 17 cities and counties that the "three-in-one election" Dec. 5 is indeed a vote of confidence or no-confidence in Ma's performance as president and now as KMT chairman since taking office May 20.

On the surface, given its pervasive local organizations and abundant financial resources, the KMT should emerge with a clear victory as the ruling party is virtually certain to retain at least 10 county commissioner or city mayoral posts, despite the growing likelihood of the loss of two seats to former KMT mavericks and one or even two mayoral posts to the opposition center-left Democratic Progressive Party.

Retaining Yunlin, Chiayi and Pingtung Counties in southern Taiwan seemed like a "mission impossible" for the DPP only a few months ago as it reeled from the debacles in last year's presidential and legislative elections and the dark cloud of the corruption cases surrounding ex-president Chen Shui-bian and the former first family.

In this context, the DPP's likely recovery of Yilan County, which symbolized "quality guaranteed green administration" for 24 years under three DPP mayors, would present Ma with more than a "symbolic" setback as well as boosting the DPP's morale, which has begun to rebound after a stunning victory of a DPP candidate in a legislative by-election in Yunlin County Sept. 26.

Falling dominos

However, the most weighty implication of Saturday's polls will be their impact on next December's elections for the mayors and city councils of the new special municipalities formed by the merger of Taichung City, Kaohsiung City and County, Tainan City and County, the upgraded Taipei County and the capital of Taipei City itself.

The "big five" municipalities will represent over 10 million voters, compared to the less than seven million who will be eligible to cast ballots Saturday.

Therefore, even if the KMT wins at least 10 out of 17 mayoral posts Saturday as expected, the resulting momentum may not be sufficient to power a successful re-election presidential re-election campaign in 2012.

On the other hand, if the DPP snares three or even four of the five special municipality mayoral posts next December, the opposition party will regain a firm platform and considerable energy to mount a credible challenge to Ma and the KMT's overwhelming legislative majority in early 2012.

The spectre of this domino effect has driven Ma to place overriding priority on securing Yilan County in order to block the DPP from highlighting its recovery of the small northeastern county as a symbol of citizen confidence in "green administration" just as citizen trust in the crisis-ridden KMT administration erodes.

Ironically, Ma's transparent sense of urgency has led to several grave errors.

For example, Ma blatantly violated the strict ban on publication of opinion polls 10 days before an election contained in Article 53 of the Election and Recall Act Wednesday by discussing the results of a TVBS survey on the Yilan race in front of news media cameras.

After an initial attempt to excuse the blunder, KMT Secretary-General Chan Chun-po apologized on Ma's behalf the following day, but the incident displayed Ma's willingness to disregard electoral laws by taking advantage of his presidential immunity from prosecution.

This action compounded the shocking and unprecedented dressing up of National Security Bureau special service guards and military police in the campaign vests of KMT Hsinchu County commissioner candidate Chiu Ching-chun during a vote-stumping parade in an action that has sparked fears of the possible renewal of KMT political control over Taiwan's military and security agencies.

In addition, despite promises of "party reform," Ma has evidently failed to curb vote buying by KMT candidates as shown by the fact that 11 KMT mayoral or council candidates in Miaoli, Pingtung and other counties have already been indicted, detained or questioned on vote-buying charges compared to zero for the DPP.

This unattractive tally follows the annulment of the electoral victories of five KMT legislators in the January 2008 Legislative Yuan polls and subsequent KMT defeats in two of the three by-elections held so far, including the Yunlin drubbing.

Ma, whose prestige has already been hurt by his breaking of a presidential campaign promise not to take over the KMT chairmanship if elected, is now spending the bulk of his time stumping for KMT candidates and defraying unpopular measures, such as a hike in national health insurance premiums, until after Saturday's polls.

Ironically, Ma himself has turned Saturday's local polls into the first opportunity for a large portion of Taiwan voters to express their judgement on the performance of his KMT administration.