On March 22, 2008, Ma Ying-jeou was elected the 12th President of the Republic of China. Ma Ying-jeou was born in Hong Kong on July 13, 1950. His ancestral home was in Hengshan County, Hunan Province. He moved to Taiwan with his family in 1952. Joined the Kuomintang of China in 1967. Graduated from the Law Department of Taiwan University in 1972. Later, he went to the United States to study and received a Master of Laws from New York University and a Doctor of Laws from Harvard University. Ma Ying-jeou worked briefly in the United States. After 1981, he served as a research consultant at the University of Maryland School of Law, a legal consultant at the First Bank of Boston, and an intern lawyer at the Coltiz Law Firm on Wall Street in New York. He later returned to Taiwan to serve as the "Presidential Palace" Deputy Director of the First Bureau and Associate Professor of the Institute of Law at Chengchi University. In 1982, Ma Ying-jeou became Chiang Ching-kuo's English translator. In the fifteen years after 1984, he successively served as deputy secretary-general of the Kuomintang Central Committee and in various administrative positions. He was elected mayor of Taipei City in December 1998 and was re-elected mayor of Taipei City in December 2002. Ma Ying-jeou is a member of the 13th and 14th Central Committees of the Kuomintang. In August 1999 and July 2001, he was elected as a member of the Standing Committee of the Kuomintang Central Committee. In March 2003, he was elected vice chairman of the Kuomintang. In July 2005, he was elected as the new party chairman of the Kuomintang of China with a vote rate of 72.36%. On February 13, 2007, he was sued by the Taiwan "High Court Prosecutor's Office" for using "special fees" during his term as mayor of Taipei (later acquitted by the Taiwan court in the second instance). Ma Ying-jeou promised to resign as chairman of the Kuomintang of China if he was indicted. On the same day, he resigned as party chairman and turned grief into strength to officially announce his candidacy for Taiwan's "President" in 2008. On March 22, 2008, voting was held in the leadership election of the Taiwan region. China's Kuomintang candidates Ma Ying-jeou and Vincent Siew won, with 7.6587 million votes, a vote rate of 58.45%. On July 26, 2009, the general election for the chairman of the Kuomintang of China ended. Ma Ying-jeou was elected as the new party chairman with 285,354 votes, with a vote rate of 92.51%. On October 17, the 18th Congress of the Kuomintang of China was held at Xinzhuang Gymnasium in Taipei County. Ma Ying-jeou was sworn in as chairman of the Kuomintang.