The stage has been set for DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen to face President Ma Ying-jeou in the 2012 presidential race. Analysts say that the two candidates have a lot in common as far as their public images are concerned, and their policies are likely to be the deciding factor in the election.

In addition, they also pointed out that in order to win the eleciton, maintaining party unity remains the top issue for Tsai, while President Ma will need to highlight his achievements in the coming 9 months.

Tsai Ing-wen defeated Su Tseng-chang and Hsu Hsin-liang to win the DPP's presidential primaries, and will represent the party in the 2012 presidential election.

Political analysts say that Tsai's top challenge will be consolidating support within the pan-green camp and preventing factional splits.

The KMT also officially nominated President Ma Ying-jeou as its candidate on Wednesday.

National Taiwan University political science Professor Wang Yeh-lih says that five companies each polled 3,000 individuals for the DPP's presidential primaries, and every company's results showed Tsai's lead over Ma to exceed the margin of error.

Wang believes that this serves as a warning to Ma, but also said that Tsai can't become excessively satisfied with herself.

As more than 20% of poll respondents failed to pick a candidate, the election could go either way.

Both Wang and Shih Cheng-feng feel that Ma and Tsai have similar public personas and share many characteristics, which means that the election may be determined by policy platforms.