President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday said he would not yield to opposition parties' exorbitant requests to control executive power.
Chen said for the past year his administration had been beset by obstacles because the opposition had not yet acknowledged the fact that the DPP is in power, and they chose to boycott all policies presented by the government.
"A year has passed. These opposition parties have not accepted the reality that Chen Shui-bian is the president, neither have they accepted that the DPP won the presidential election," Chen said in his home town, Tainan.
Chen said that he and his team could accept the criticism that they had not done a sufficiently fair job. But if the opposition parties had a willingness to improve the situation, he said, they should make use of their majority in the legislature to pass or revise bills beneficial to the country.
"But apparently, they chose otherwise. They chose to boycott all the policies introduced by the government.
"They just tried to paralyze the government, and then used this as the best pretext to attack the government as totally unfunctional," Chen said.
"I have given them a year, and we can't tolerate [the opposition parties'] irrationality anymore."
Chen returned to his hometown and received a warm welcome from his many supporters in the region. He appealed to them to support the candidates nominated by the DPP to help them become the biggest party in the legislature, so that he could fulfill his duty in his remaining two-and-a-half years of tenure.
Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) also campaigned for KMT legislative candidates in Tainan County yesterday.
This is the second time in a week that Ma and Chen -- believed to be the two most likely competitors in the 2004 presidential election -- have appeared in the same region simultaneously to stump for their respective candidates.
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