His Excellency President Chen Shui-bian has the distinction of being Taiwan’s youngest lawyer when he passed the bar exams while he was still a student at National Taiwan University where he graduated in 1974.
Before entering politics, Chen was a senior partner at the Formosan International Marine and Commercial Law Office. After serving as part of the legal team defending democracy activists involved in the Kaohsiung Incident, President Chen became associated with the opposition movement against the KMT authoritarian government. In 1981, he ran and accrued the highest number of votes for a seat of the Taipei City Council. He was jailed for 8 months in 1986 for libel when he served as the Director of Formosa, an opposition magazine. Immediately after his release he joined the Democratic Progressive Party, and actively campaigned for the democratization of Taiwan. He later on became the chairman of the party. Chen was elected to the Legislative Yuan in 1989 and served until 1994. He won the Taipei mayoral election in 1994, and during his tenure received a consistent approval rating of over 70 percent by Taipei residents.
In 2000, Chen became the tenth-term president, the first non-KMT candidate to serve in that office, thus ending 55 year of KMT authoritarian rule. President Chen and Vice-President Lu Hsiu-lien were re-elected for a second term with more than 6.4 million votes (50.12% of total votes) in 2004.
Chen served as CALD Chair from 2004-2005.
