He said that the TSU's move, coupled with former president Lee Teng-hui's (李登輝) recent remarks against Chen, showed the falseness of the DPP's claims to be defending a "localized government" against efforts to recall it.
"Doesn't former president Lee represent localized power? Isn't the TSU part of the localized power? They support localized power but not corruption," Ma said.
While acknowledging that the recall motion had created confrontations between political parties as well as ethnic groups, he denied the motion had created social unrest.
"Social instability has been created by the first family's corrupt practices... I don't see any social turmoil," he said in response to questions about the street protests for and against Chen.
Saying the president had angered the people with his corruption and incompetence, Ma said political struggles and ethnic confrontations were the price that had to be paid for Taiwan to seek its core values. He urged the DPP to stop triggering political clashes with its "localized power" ideology.
He also rejected Yu's offer of a meeting, saying the KMT has been cooperating with the government in the legislature.
"The cooperation is right there. We passed 75 bills during the last legislative session ? It's more important for the DPP to clean its own house than meet with opposition parties," he said.
Soong said what happened in the legislature showed that pan-green lawmakers "have been forced to distance themselves from a corrupt president."
He said the pan-green legislators hadn't voted against the recall motion because they were afraid of endorsing the president.
"Except for the 14 invalid votes, half the legislators voted to recall the president. However, the recall motion failed anyway. That is Taiwan's democratic miracle," Soong said.
Meanwhile, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesman Michel Lu (呂慶龍) said the recall motion had attracted international attention but most countries had expressed respect for the procedure to avoid interfering in Taiwan's internal affairs.
Lu said as long as the recall vote and the demonstrations ended peacefully, it would prove Taiwan's democracy was still strong.
He said the ministry would send telegraphs to its embassies and representative offices about the vote's result and advise diplomats to make appropriate explanations to their host governments.
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiu-chuan and Chang Yun-ping



