It wasn’t difficult to find out how President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) spent his Lunar New Year holiday. Anyone who browsed news channels over the nine days could easily find Ma criss-crossing the nation, either busily campaigning for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidates for Saturday’s legislative by-elections or giving away red envelopes containing chocolate gold coins to temple visitors — often with KMT candidates standing close by.
It was festive and appropriate seeing the president spread holiday cheer and send out New Year greetings, but it is disturbing to see him perform his public duty with obvious partisan colors, blurring his roles as president and KMT chairman.
As head of state, where Ma goes and what he does publicly is closely watched by the media. With that in mind, and in view of a slew of gloomy news ahead of and during the holidays, one can’t help but wonder if Ma couldn’t have better spent his time and energy on causes more worthy of public attention rather than concentrating on partisan interests.
According to research conducted by the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families, last year’s economic downturn and the disaster triggered by Typhoon Morakot resulted in an increase in the number of under-privileged families.
Shortly before the Lunar New Year holiday, the non-profit children’s welfare organization estimated that about 50,000 children across the country were likely to spend their holidays with empty stomachs as a result of severe poverty.
The latest information released by the Ministry of the Interior also showed that the number of households below the poverty line has climbed to a record 105,000.
That the figure has exceeded 100,000 households for two consecutive quarters suggests a growing gap between the nation’s rich and poor.
Meanwhile, media also reported another grim figure: Between Feb. 13 — Lunar New Year’s Eve — and last Friday, nine help centers in Taipei County received more than 1,000 calls on their suicide hotlines.
If Ma were to visit children from under-privileged families or the help centers, for example, wouldn’t that be more beneficial in drumming up media coverage of pressing issues than campaigning?
No one ever said being head of a state while doubling as a party chairman was easy. In the past, the KMT — including Ma — often accused then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of blurring the lines between the two roles. After making the same decision, Ma should be all the more careful in drawing a clear distinction between president and chairman in his public appearances if he has any intention of honoring his pledge to be a “people’s president” (全民總統).
On Monday, Ma said he didn’t deserve to be a president if he failed to actualize the goal of signing an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China, which he touts as the best way to create economic opportunities for Taiwanese.
Ma would certainly not deserve to be president if — as suggested by his public conduct and rhetoric over the holidays — he cares more about partisan interests than people’s well-being.
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