Denouncing President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) remarks on Tuesday as "unrepentant," Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) last night lambasted the president for shirking responsibility and repeated his appeal for the president to resign.
"He touched lightly on issues people want to know about and shifted the blame onto others. I didn't see any evidence of remorse or self-examination in his address," Ma said in a televised response to Chen's address.
In response to Chen's comment that he was willing to sacrifice himself for the country if his "horrible death" would help to ease the grudges certain people held against him, an allusion to a verbal attack launched previously by Ma, the KMT chairman reiterated his apology for his "improper remarks."
"I already apologized last week ... [the remarks were] improper. I offer my apology again and hopefully he and the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] will not misunderstand or misinterpret them again," he said.
Ma then lashed out at the president for failing to give detailed explanations about the recent scandals involving the first lady, including allegations of impropriety involving Sogo gift vouchers and another incident involving fugitive tycoon Chen Yu-hao (
"[Chen] said that the first lady did not `directly' receive the gift vouchers. What does that mean? Does it mean that she received them indirectly?" Ma asked.
Besides denying that his wife was involved in any of the scandals, Chen on Tuesday also denied committing the "10 crimes" -- including corruption, abuse of power, obstruction of justice, suppression of the media, incompetent governance and violating the Constitution -- listed by the opposition as justification for the motion it had filed in the legislature to recall the president.
Ma criticized Chen for citing the fact that the suicide rate in Taiwan is lower than in China, saying it showed the president "does not care about people's livelihoods." He urged Chen to stop shifting the blame onto others and to take "political responsibility" rather than "legal responsibility" for his son-in-law's alleged involvement in the insider-trading case.
"The reason your son-in-law was involved in the case is because of you. It's because of your power and your position," Ma said.
Ma appealed to the DPP to stop defending Chen, who he said had become a "corrupt president."
Ma, a former justice minister, encouraged prosecutors to go to great lengths to investigate the scandals, saying "we are all watching and the public will support you."
While condemning the president, Ma also dismissed People First Party Chairman James Soong's (
Saying that such a move would only "shift the focus," Ma said the KMT would spare no effort to continue to push the recall motion.
Ma made a soft appeal to the public by explaining the KMT's decision to push for the recall motion, defining it as a "historical move for the dignity of Taiwanese and the future of the DPP."
Compared to Chen's address in which he spoke mostly in Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese), Ma made his speech in Mandarin.
"I don't want to speak in Taiwanese, which I can [speak], because some Hakka and Aboriginal people cannot understand the language. I'd rather let more people understand what I say," Ma said at a press conference following his televised talk.
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