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Ma cancels dragon boat racing plans

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has canceled plans to take part in the 2008 Taipei International Dragon Boat Championships today after coming under fire for failing to visit the flood-hit southern areas and being accused of wasting taxpayers’ money because of the large number of agents needed to protect him at the event.

Ma changed his mind “because he sympathized with the flood victims,” Presidential Office spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) said at a press conference yesterday.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers had accused the president of overlooking the damage to crops and farmland caused by the floods since Wednesday and the suffering that followed.

Lawmakers from Ma’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) joined the chorus of criticism yesterday, urging Ma to drop his plan to participate in the dragon boat race.

“President Ma Ying-jeou will be having fun in Taipei while flood victims suffer in the central and southern parts of the country. That won’t be a good image,” KMT Legislator Lee Chia-chin (李嘉進) said.

Lee suggested that Ma should lead Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) and the Cabinet on a journey to the south to help victims find a solution to long-standing flood-related problems, which he said the Council of Agriculture could not solve alone.

KMT Legislator Chang Sho-wen (張碩文) said Ma should have planned his schedule better.

“He should have been able to visit flood victims before participating in the dragon boat competition,” Chang said.

The National Security Bureau’s plan to deploy 200 agents at the scene of the race to provide security for Ma also drew criticism as a waste of public resources.

Wang tried to defend Ma’s earlier decision.

“The president is very much concerned about the disaster and has kept in close communication with Premier Liu and officials about the relief work since June 4. He decided not to participate in the dragon boat race as a gesture of sympathy for victims of the flood,” Wang said.

He said Ma had not visited the disaster areas out of “respect for the Constitution.”

“According to the Constitution, the premier is the highest administrative chief; disaster relief and visits fall under the Executive Yuan’s authority,” Wang said.

But he added that Ma wouldn’t rule out visiting disaster areas if there were any serious disasters.

Ma initially planned to organize a team of officials from the Presidential Office to participate in the annual race. He previously led a team of officials from the Taipei City Government to take part in the race during his eight-year tenure as Taipei mayor.

“It is way too late for President Ma to decide to withdraw from the dragon boat race. He should have known that a president should be where the suffering public is,” DPP Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said.

Chang, however, praised Ma’s last-minute decision not to join the race, saying he should be commended for taking public concerns into account.

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