Johnny Neihu's NewsWatch: Dirty tricks are the stuff of legend

But surely even Taiwan has its limits. Just when I thought reality would quietly seep back into the pages of the local papers, the KMT released its list of 15 "dirty tricks" that the DPP was prepared to resort to rather than die an electoral death.

Just a few highlights from the list: The DPP will poison candidates and frame the KMT; sway illegal gamblers to bet on DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) and thus have to vote for him; assassinate Ma or Hsieh and postpone the election (I wonder if the DPP has run that one past Hsieh); spark a cross-strait conflict; block Taiwanese from re-entering the country to vote with a bird-flu scare; or -- by far the most terrifying -- tie up KMT campaign office telephone lines with incessant phone calls.

Like any good Taiwanese, these allegations had me worried (I'd already placed a bet on Ma with the local bookie).

Little did I know, the KMT list barely scratched the surface of DPP villainy. My "sources" -- including a bug up the ass of Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) -- passed on some stuff that didn't make it into print.

The KMT research team has uncovered evidence that the pan-greens have other plans to roll out in a worst-case scenario. Tactics so heinous, so appalling, that even honorary KMT source-of-all-things-vile Lien Chan (連戰) was impressed.

Horrified by the discovery, Wang decided to withhold them from the final list for the sake of public order.

But even as I write this, DPP henchmen are hard at work doing the following:

1. The Cabinet is amassing made-to-order exploding ballots. Vote pan-blue and the ballot self-destructs once placed in the box -- but not before nanotechnology sensors release a mutated, non-contagious form of the Ebola virus (courtesy of pan-blue sympathizers at the Centers for Disease Control) into the voter's bloodstream.

2. The DPP will smuggle in mercenaries from Turkey (or possibly Somalian pirates -- the informants are not certain) to slay staffers at voting stations in pan-blue governed cities and counties. The Cabinet will then claim the staffers committed mass suicide because pan-blue local governments did not love their nation enough to heed the Central Election Commission.

3. President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) will whip out his personal nuclear weapon -- the one that legislative rumormonger Su Chi (蘇起) has heard so much about -- to obliterate the Taipei 101 skyscraper one hour before polls open and frame Beijing. He will then declare martial law, appoint himself president for life and erect his own likeness in place of Peanut's at the Monument Formerly Known as CKS.

4. The DPP will use the military to parachute small teams of agitators into China. Once inside, they will start an uprising, overthrow the Chinese Communist Party and establish a new, equally authoritarian government. Once a puppet leader of the "DPPeople's Republic of China" has been installed, Taipei can safely declare independence, bundle up all the KMT and their belongings -- minus a few stolen assets -- and send them packing.

Foolproof! And it has the added benefit of being partly based on old KMT military plans.

Heard or read something particularly objectionable about Taiwan? Johnny wants to know: dearjohnny@taipeitimes.com is the place to reach me, with "Dear Johnny" in the subject line.