Money is the name of the game

Recall? You would have to be out of your mind to truly believe that the KMT-led opposition is serious about recalling President Chen shui-bian (陳水扁) over the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant (核四) issue. They know full well the silent majority in Taiwan isn't necessarily in favor of proceeding with construction of the plant.

The DPP has maintained a consistent anti-nuclear stance. Otherwise, it might have had to change the green color in its party flag. So long as the administration honors the contracts for compensation with all parties concerned, the credibility of the DPP government will not be damaged. The political wave in favor of recall will therefore soon subside if the KMT holds on to the nuclear plant issue alone.

People in Taiwan are disgusted with the KMT's corrupt nature and that is exactly the reason why the it was driven out of office just five months ago. So, the other opposition parties, which are willing to gang up with the KMT this time, are all doing so for political motives of their own, the most obvious one being anti-Taiwan independence. They aren't falling into the KMT's arms simply because of the KMT's stand on the nuclear plant issue.

Again, the anti-independence issue is hardly a cause for recalling the state president, because voters have known and tolerated what Chen stands for on this particular issue. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to secure 39 percent of the vote last March, with the president of the Acade-mia Sinica, Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲), and several renowned business groups endorsing him. In fact, there are no causes for the opposition camp to recall the president other than economic hardship.

Over the past few days the KMT has tried very hard to link Taiwan's economic prosperity with the scrapped power plant. The effort is understandable but the reasoning is completely misplaced.

How can KMT legislators be asking the government to shut down the three operating nuclear power plants earlier than sched-uled and offer such an arrangement in exchange for government approval to build a new nuclear power plant? "Why would anyone kill three sons for the sake of giving birth to a new daughter?" asks one Taiwanese man interviewed on the street for TV.

In other words, if nuclear power plants hold the key to Taiwan's energy supply, which in turn has a tremendous bearing on the island's economic future, then what are the reasons for scrapping the three existing plants, which have larger total electricity production capacity than the one earmarked to replace them?

It is thus clear that the dependency of the economy on the new power plant is minimal. Yet, why are KMT legislators so persistent about the recall issue right now? Ironically, the fact that the supposedly collapsed KMT Legislative Yuan caucus is even functioning once more is not due to the KMT's own efforts, but Chen's determined reform policy.

Since the DPP took over the reins of government, Chen has pledged to end all favors formerly delivered by the Executive Yuan to individual legislators each year. Speaker of the Legislative Yuan, Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), harshly criticized the government recently for eliminating the so-called local construction funds. The funds were allocated each year to most of the legislators for the upgrading of local public facilities in their constituencies.