The most recent accusation was that the former leader of the opposition Democratic Progressive party had been caught by security cameras snacking on peanuts and chocolate bars while, supposedly, on a 16-day hunger strike against what he says is a politically motivated trial. It might be my personal bias, but almost more damaging than allegations that his two-term administration was scandalously corrupt is the idea that an embodiment of Taiwanese democracy should have been scarfing midnight snacks while boasting of supreme willpower in going without food. If true, this is a bit disappointing for the man whose election in 2000 cemented Taiwan's remarkable transition from authoritarian police state to multiparty liberal democracy.

Though there are farcical aspects to his incarceration, the outcome of his trial, which starts at the Taipei district court next week, matters. Taiwan, one of the few genuine democracies in Asia, needs to show it can simultaneously root out official corruption and maintain the independence of judiciary from political manipulation.

That is no easy matter in a state as divided as Taiwan, where political differences are often an expression of attitudes towards mainland China and to a voter's identity as a Chinese or a Taiwanese. Any suspicion that the Kuomintangparty, the nationalists who regained power last year following eight years in the wilderness, is out for revenge could open unbridgeable rifts among the island's 23m people.