KMT denies having made allegations

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) never called President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) a "kickback president," he said yesterday.

Rather, his campaign staff wrote it instead.

Hwang Yih-jiau (黃義交), spokesman for the pan-blue alliance presidential campaign, said yesterday that "The draft campaign speech was prepared by campaign staff merely as a reference for Lien. But Lien did not use it [in his actual speech delivered that night]."

First lady Wu Shu-chen's (吳淑珍) defamation suit, filed yesterday, should not be allowed by prosecutors to proceed, Hwang said.

The draft campaign speech was faxed by the alliance to media organizations on Saturday. It described Chen as a "10 percent president" who levied kickbacks of 10 percent of the value on major infrastructure projects.

Hwang did not explain, however, how circulating a draft speech containing the allegation to media outlets was in any way less defamatory than voicing the allegations at a campaign rally.

Instead he claimed that the alliance was simply asking questions about the president's probity that were in the public interest and frequently asked by ordinary people.

Whether a president has been involved in any insider trading or accepted illegal political donations are issues that fall within the scope of public discussion as they are matters of concern to the public, Hwang said.

These are issues which all citizens can call into question and that the president should not shy away from addressing, he said.

The alliance also launched a new ad campaign yesterday attempting to rebut accusations from the DPP that the Lien family's immense wealth -- estimated at NT$20 billion -- was the result Lien family members using their political connections during the era of the martial law dictatorship to illegally both acquire land and change that land's designated use.

The ad branded the DPP's charges as "false accusations," "smearing," "shameless," "distorted" and "purely fictitious."