The two minor presidential candidates yesterday in their televised platform presentations concentrated their attacks on DPP presidential candidate Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), branding him as "the most dangerous candidate."
The two fringe candidates, independent Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良) and Li Ao (李敖) of the New Party focused their barbs on Chen's policies.
"The DPP's Chen has stayed on the road to independence for Taiwan and this has made him the most dangerous candidate in the race," said Hsu, a former DPP chairman.
The New Party's Li said Chen was dangerous because his vague interpretations of cross-strait issues had shown that Chen's was himself unclear about the situation.
Reacting to the accusations, You Ying-lung (游盈隆), a spokesman for Chen, said that the statements by the two candidates did not surprise him because he knew their motives.
"We are sorry to see that Hsu excluded Lien Chan (連戰) and James Soong (宋楚瑜) in his attacks, but instead only targeted Chen," said You, adding that Hsu, a former DPP comrade, most likely went after Chen out of personal revenge.
"As for Li, his views were directed more toward another independent presidential candidate," You said, referring to Li's similar position on the cross-strait issue as that of Soong.
Soong yesterday also targeted Chen during the forum on cross-strait issues by pointing to Chen's pro-independence stance.
To strengthen people's confidence in him, Chen said during the forum that if elected he would neither announce Taiwan independence nor hold a referendum to decide the future of Taiwan.
You told the Taipei Times that Chen had been a common target because recent surveys had shown that Chen was gaining support.
"Chen did not feel that the forum was a proper venue to defend his policies. The forum was not set up for the candidates to interact with each other," You said.
He said that Chen's camp had expected there to be an option to enter debate with the other candidates, but instead the event was a series of monologues.
You said that cross-strait political opinions presented by both Lien and Soong were not innovative.
"Was the first televised campaign forum necessary and meaningful?" he asked. "Today we saw Lien's boring proposals, which were similar to his past reports at the Legislative Yuan. And we saw Soong's insincere presentation which was lacking in perspective."
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