Chen says a DPP majority needed to continue reforms

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) called on the public again yesterday to support the ruling DPP in undertaking its second stage of political reform to help the government fulfill its goals.

"Only when we have the controlling majority in the legislature and the DPP holds the administration can the government effectively operate," Chen said at a DPP campaign rally in Hsinchu County.

"Only if the rest of my term [as president] is smooth, can all 23 million Taiwanese people enjoy a good life," Chen added.

Chen's campaign team yesterday stopped blasting the opposition parties and instead shifted to policy debate.

Chen stressed that the government will focus on investment in education for the next generation to upgrade Taiwan's future competitiveness, despite the government's poor financial condition.

Meanwhile, the KMT yesterday continued to demand that the president should accept the idea that the "majority alliance or party has the right to form the Cabinet" and criticized Chen for misleading the public on the real state of Taiwan's constitutional system.

"He [Chen] said that our country adopted a semi-presidential system during last year's presidential campaign but now he refuses to abide by that system," Lien said at KMT campaign events in Chiayi County.

"If the DPP administration performed admirably, then we would expect the people of Taiwan to return DPP lawmakers to their seats in the legislature," Lien said, "but the ruling DPP's ineptness has brought Taiwan disaster."

"If we allow the DPP to control the Executive Yuan and Legislative Yuan," Lien said, "it will become a dictatorial regime, just like the Communist Party."

He then urged all KMT supporters to "return home" to help the party remain the largest in Taiwan.

"Party Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) indicated that we have to launch a movement to call back all supporters, those who we lost during past years due to poor policymaking," KMT Organizational Development Committee director-general Chao Shou-pao (趙守博) said yesterday.

Chao's remarks reflected that, though the KMT and People First Party (PFP) claim to be cooperating, tension still exists. Chao even said the rumor that "Lien and [PFP Chairman James] Soong (宋楚瑜) will show up together to campaign for both parties' major candidates" is not true. "We don't have any such plan for the time being," Chao said.

The PFP, however, suggested that all political parties' leaders should gather after the year-end elections to discuss how to reform the country's constitutional system.

This is "to find a resolution to solve the current deadlock over the relationship between the president, the Legislative Yuan and Executive Yuan," Soong said yesterday.