The DPP campaign office yesterday slammed KMT candidate Lien Chan (
Over the past two months, Lien has promised to spend over NT$1 trillion in various welfare schemes that are nothing more than drawing on a balance that the Lien does not have, said Chiu Yi-jen (
Chiu said yesterday that Lien could never make good on the "checks" that he has been issuing given his unreliable performance during the time he was premier.
Since Lien first made a campaign promise on Nov. 18 to give elderly fishermen a NT$252 million subsidy, Lien's campaign promises have reached the total of an entire year's budget for the central government, he said.
Chiu publicized a list of "checks" for Lien's campaign promises, including funds for developing Yunlin County, NT$1 billion to NT$2 billion; funds for developing Penghu County, NT$3.8 billion; the National Stabilization Fund, NT$500 billion; funds for extending education to 12 years, NT$60 billion; funds to buy each class of all schools and families at least one personal computer, NT$10 billion; education funds for children, NT$1.4 billion; education funds for senior high schools, NT$1 billion; a pay raise for local public representatives, NT$2.6 billion; and funds for agricultural development, NT$280 billion.
Chiu said that Lien has said nothing about whether the government was actually able to fund all of these promises and that this was tantamount to cheating the voters.
In addition, Chiu said, Lien had lost his credibility when he was premier from 1993 to 1997. For example, Lien vowed to downsize the number of government officials by at least three percent, but in fact the result was a four percent increase, he said.
"And he even pledged to eliminate all corruption inside the government, but on the contrary, there were still 60 serious corruption cases involving over NT$80 billion during Lien's term as premier," Chiu said.
He also said Lien failed to carry out his promise to help put part of the Chiayi City railway underground. Moreover, Lien said that he would solve the flooding problem at Tainan County's Science-based Industrial Park, and develop Keelung's public works. None of these goals have been reached, according to Chiu.
"Given all this, how can people trust Lien again? We can only say that the Lien-Siew ticket, which they themselves call a team with two premiers, is but a team of `check bouncers,'" Chiu said.
Chen's campaign officials said that many KMT local organizations, which originally supported independent candidate James Soong (
"There are only 59 days left to campaign. The KMT's enormous party machine will certainly start to gear up. We have to take them on in every village and township," said Jimmy Kuo (
Kuo stressed that while Soong and Lien were struggling to win over local KMT factions, the DPP had a better opportunity than before in developing a grassroots power base.
"We plan to establish over 7,700 local campaign organizations at the neighborhood level," Kuo added.
"Chen will be at the head of campaign teams which will hold over 400 rallies in various townships across the island," he said.
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