In retaliation for the DPP's recent series of TV commercials alleging certain KMT lawmakers are responsible for killing government budgets, the KMT launched a commercial of its own yesterday.
The move was taken a day after a group of 10 KMT lawmakers named in the DPP advertisements filed a suit with the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office for slander and election law violations.
Attacking the DPP for "openly telling lies for the sake of cheating people out of their votes," the KMT ads highlight the legislature's record in an effort to disprove the DPP allegations.
"The country's economy is undergoing a severe recession, but the DPP, for the sake of the elections, is openly lying and making false accusations," said KMT spokesman Wang Chih-kang (王志剛).
"The DPP is not only cheating the electorate, it is bullying them. Where is the justice?" Wang added.
A total of 15 KMT lawmakers are named in the ads, which are intended to highlight the DPP's claim that the opposition is so "barbarous" that it even cut budgets for the improvement of child welfare and local development.
In addition to a NT$13.1 billion supplementary budget covering child welfare, computer lessons for children and local anti-flood projects, the DPP blamed the opposition for removing another NT$70 billion earmarked for infrastructure budgets.
In the most recent ad launched on Friday, the DPP further attacked the KMT for freezing a NT$19.4 billion subsidy fund for local infrastructure projects.
According to Wang, however, the review process for the NT$19.4 billion budget was delayed because the number of attendants failed to reach the quorum for meetings, adding that the absence of DPP lawmakers was responsible for the problem.
Also, as there was an inter-party consensus to prioritize legislation related to Taiwan's accession to the WTO, the budget was put off until the legislature reopens on Dec. 3, Wang said.
Of the NT$70 billion, the KMT spokesman said, up to NT$40 billion was cut at the request of agencies concerned because they had a problem implementing the budget.
Wang said that while the state-run Taiwan Power Company had asked KMT lawmaker Liao Wan-ju (
Similarly, the NT$2.9 billion for China Petroleum Corp (中油) was removed based on a proposal by DPP legislators Yu Jane-daw (
The NT$29.6 billion for the Chunghwa Telecom was killed because the agency wanted the budget removed, Wang added.
Meanwhile, the NT$13.1 billion supplementary budget was nixed after the Executive Yuan failed to present detailed spending plans in time, according to Wang.
DPP legislators Yu Jan-daw (余政道), Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠) and Ker Chien-ming (科建銘) responded to the latest KMT ads yesterday by saying that "the KMT has blurred the focus since they were forced, after inter-party negotiations, to endorse the budget cut."
Yu said that, as convener of the legislature's budget committee, he was told that the KMT would boycott the Cabinet's other budget plans if the DPP failed to cut the budget for China Petroleum.
Yu said that he had no choice but to propose cutting part of the budget in response to the KMT's requests.
Echoing Yu's statements, Wong said that the budget cut was made after inter-party negotiations, adding that opposition parties vetoed the NT$13.1 billion budget and froze the NT$19.4 billion budget by themselves.
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