Voters must be responsible
It is hard to understand why the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate narrowly defeated the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate in the Greater Taichung legislative by-election on Saturday (“KMT wins Taichung by-election,” Jan. 27, page 1).
As a result, the KMT feels “pleased” and the DPP feels “honorably” defeated.
Taiwanese have given President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) a very low approval rating for several months, but voters seem to accept the poor performance of his administration.
The unwise choice of a candidate by voters is the main cause of their own political and economical sufferings. The government they choose is as good or as bad as their voting decisions. This is particularly true for re-electing the same government.
Many voters are military, governmental and educational personnel and they mistakenly believe that their jobs are offered by the KMT instead of the government. This misunderstanding is due to the long-term control of the government by the KMT from 1945 to 2000. The DPP has to correct this misunderstanding of the voters.
Another misunderstanding voters have is that former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was corrupt and Ma is as “clean as a Teflon pot.”
From the way Ma allegedly pocketed Taipei mayoral funds, sold some of the KMT’s “ill-gotten assets” and refuses to return the remaining vast assets to the Taiwanese people, Ma’s cleanliness is highly questionable.
Ma wants to keeps Chen in jail possibly until his death in spite of many appeals of Taiwanese and foreigners for Chen’s medical parole. Ma tries to use this as a symbol to show Taiwanese, especially voters, that Ma is clean and Chen was dirty. Voters should make their own judgement on this.
Charles Hong
Columbus, Ohio
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