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Discussions over election TV debate will resume Sunday

The negotiations over presidential debates which were aborted yesterday morning will resume on Sunday, as Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday agreed to participate. He originally declined to attend.

The negotiations regarding the TV debates between the candidates reached an impasse, as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) campaign headquarters refused to attend the meeting held at the Howard Plaza Hotel in Taipei yesterday morning.

The DPP said that they would not attend because they felt the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-People First Party (PFP) alliance was insincere about negotiating a solution, having assigned three negotiators whose rank and stature were not commensurate with the representatives dispatched by the DPP.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) campaign headquarters chief Wu Nai-jen (吳乃仁) said the pan-green alliance wants to negotiate on a reciprocal basis, which was also a request of the pan-blue alliance. However, Wu said, Ma's absence revealed the pan-blues' immature attitude toward the TV debates.

The DPP nominated Taipei County Commissioner and national campaign manager Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), DPP Legislator Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) and Wu as negotiators for yesterday's scheduled negotiations concerning the date, location and format of future debates

However, instead of assigning Ma, its national campaign manager, the pan-blues appointed one of their spokesmen, Yu Tzu-shiang (游梓翔), KMT policy convener Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權) and PFP legislative leader Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋), also the deputy director of the pan--blues' policy department, as the DPP's counterparts.

Wu said Ma had publicly urged the presidential candidates to face off in a televised debate on the referendum issue, had personally invited the Public Television Service to host the presidential debate and had even come up with a debate topic. But now Ma exposed his insincerity by shunning the task of organizing the debates and was hiding behind the scenes, having kicked over the hornet's nest in fomenting a battle about the debate issue.

Yu yesterday said Ma's absence during the negotiation was due to the fact that Ma was busy with his municipal activities, and was thus unable to participate in the negotiations. Yu also added that the TV debates held in the past were not necessarily arranged by a campaign manager, and this debate was no different.

Ma said yesterday morning that he did not think that he was an indispensable part of the negotiations, as long as pan-blue headquarters had duly authorized the three representatives.
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