Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (
"The president-elect lacks a proper legal basis. Lien, therefore, will not take part in the presidential inauguration ceremony," KMT spokeswoman Kuo Su-chun (郭素春) said yesterday.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Kuo confirmed that Lien's office received an invitation yesterday to attend the ceremony from the Presidential Office.
Chen defeated the joint ticket of Lien and Soong in the March 20 presidential election by less than 30,000 votes. Lien, refusing to concede defeat, is contesting the result.
PFP spokesman Hsieh Kong-ping (
"The election dispute is unresolved," Hsieh said. "No truth, no president."
Neither Lien nor Soong attended Chen's inauguration four years ago, choosing instead to be out of the country for the occasion.
"Neither KMT headquarters nor the KMT legislative caucus have felt a sense of sincerity" from the DPP administration, KMT spokesman Justin Chou (周守訓) said. "We already have an event planned for May 20."
The KMT-PFP alliance plans to hold a protest rally that day in Taipei City "to highlight how the president is being inaugurated under controversial circumstances," Chou said.
He said the alliance will not deliberately mobilize people to attend the protest, but hopes the demonstration would still attract participants.
The location of the demonstration has yet to be determined. On Monday Kuo said the alliance was considering holding the event at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, the Taipei Municipal Stadium or the Da-An Forest Park.
Officials for the memorial hall issued a press release yesterday saying the hall was not an option for the rally.
"The memorial hall is an educational facility ... and events taking place on the premises would have to be related to either culture or education," the release said.
As May 20 is a Thursday and thus a regular working and school day, officials for the memorial hall said holding a protest at the site would disturb students at nearby Kuangfu Elementary School.
Saying that an application for use of the hall needs to be received one month in advance, the press release added that the memorial hall has not received an application from the alliance.
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