A Friday night meeting between Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) continued to spark intense speculation over the possible impact on Saturday's polls.
At the heart of the conjecturing was the possible "dump-save effect" among pan-blue supporters.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers continued to interpret the meeting as evidence of a scheme by Ma to "dump" KMT Taipei mayoral candidate Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) and get Soong elected, which they said would benefit Ma for the 2008 presidential election.
"The Ma-Soong meeting proved that abandoning Hau and saving Soong has become the KMT's key strategy," DPP Legislator William Lai (賴清德) said.
DPP Legislator Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) said that Ma could "kill two birds with one stone" by helping Soong win on Saturday -- to divide the DPP and to unite the pan-blue camp ahead of next year's legislative election and the presidential election the following year.
Hsu referred to the division within the DPP over Taipei mayoral candidate Frank Hsieh's (謝長廷) promise that he would quit the party and join in the campaign to force President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to step down should Soong beat him.
Since Taipei is largely seen as a pan-blue city, the DPP's interpretation was seen as a strategy to help Soong draw votes from front-runner Hau and boost Hsieh's chances.
However, an anonymous lawmaker said that KMT Vice Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (
"As Soong remains far behind Hau in the polls, it's hard to believe the party would ask pan-blue supporters to dump Hau and save Soong. Ma will show the party is for Hau in the final week," he said.
KMT spokesman Huang Yu-cheng (黃玉振) would not comment directly on voting strategy but said that experience has shown that a front-runner will not be the one to be abandoned by supporters if a "dump-save tactic" is used.
The PFP also made every effort to refute interpretations of Friday's meeting by the DPP or by the KMT.
PFP Legislator Chang Hsien-yao (
"Ma and Soong met on Oct. 14 and Nov. 3 to talk about forming an alliance between two parties after the election. The latest meeting [last Friday] was supposed to take place on Nov. 30. It also focused on the alliance," Chang said.
The lawmaker said that Ma and Soong had agreed that their two parties would coordinate before nominating candidates for next year's legislative elections.
"Soong didn't make offers to Ma in exchange for the KMT's support, as the DPP has claimed," he said.
The PFP also accused Hsieh of using "government intelligence agencies" to obtain the pictures of Ma and Soong's meeting site.
Hsieh denied the accusation and said he would quit politics if anyone could prove otherwise.
Later yesterday, Soong told a press conference that Friday's meeting had been Ma's idea.
"I felt the meeting was a `set-up,'" Soong said, referring to the rumors that the KMT's voting strategy was to encourage pan-blue supporters to vote for Hau.
Ma said yesterday that he didn't discuss Saturday's election at the Friday meeting, but he refused to reveal details of his conversation with Soong.
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