I have been watching the endless protests since the election on March 20. The pan-blues are demanding a recount, a new election, a state of emergency, a special task force to investigate the election-eve assassination attempt and so on.
It is hard to say what the protests are about because the protesters keep changing their demands all the time, leaving us confused about what they really want. From my point of view, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has given reasonable explanations for all the doubts the pan-blues have raised, but they keep coming up with something new to keep the protests going.
I listened to the press conference that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (
I read that there were no reasonable facts to support what Lien and Soong have been saying -- they only kept saying the election was unfair, that the election was rigged and that the assassination was staged. When asked if they had any particular evidence to support the allegations, they could not give a satisfactory answer.
So, what do the pan-blues really want? They have been rejecting any proposal that tries to resolve the problem peacefully. It is evident that they want to keep these endless protests going until Lien and Soong are declared unconditionally the winners. Otherwise, they are going to harass our lives forever.
But the question is, are Taiwanese that blind? Are people really so easily cheated with these allegations?
Maybe the protests will have some effect in the beginning, but for a long-term battle, unless you come up with something real, the pan-blues will certainly have to pay big for what they are doing.
I hope that Lien and Soong and their lawmakers will stop using their supporters as a weapon and keep the battle between politicians and the courts. Please let us live our lives in peace again!
S.A. Matsuyama
Sao Paulo, Brazil
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