DPP opens Taipei mayoral campaign

As the DPP's Taipei mayoral candidate Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) officially opened his campaign headquarters yesterday, the party's Secretary-General Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) fired the opening volley at the current mayor, Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). At an opening ceremony, Chang criticized Ma for failing to tell the voters what he plans to do for Taipei if he wins a second term.

"Lee's plan -- to build a domed stadium, to build trolley lines in the city and to move the Sungshan Airport and build a park in its current location -- is pretty clear. However, we still haven't seen any proposals from Ma," said the former premier.

Lee's headquarters occupies the first and second floors of a newly built building at the corner of Linsen North Road and Jinchou Street. Chang and Taipei County Commissioner Su Chen-chang (蘇貞昌) attended the opening to show their support for Lee.

Lee said that the location of his headquarters, in the center of the city, had been chosen for its good fengshui. "It should be a lucky location for me," he said.

"The most important thing for an ideal location as the campaign headquarters is whether it's convenient for supporters to visit. Well, I think my new headquarters fits quite well," said Lee.

While Lee was busy meeting supporters at his new campaign headquarters yesterday, Ma was busy visiting the campaign quarters -- also opened yesterday -- of three candidates for city council: , the KMT's Wang Hao (王浩) and Lai Su-ju (賴素如) and the PFP's Huang Shan-shan (黃珊珊).

In response to Chang's criticism, Ma said that he did not wish to bicker with his opponent until his own campaign headquarters had been established.

"I just want to focus on my work as mayor at this moment because I don't want the people of the city to feel that Mayor Ma has spent all his time on the campaign instead of his work, Ma said.

"Taipei citizens are smart enough to tell whether criticism is valid or not. I don't have to defend myself at all,"he said.

Ma's campaign headquarters is scheduled to be established on Oct. 27. His new headquarters will be on the first and second floors of the Pa-te Building (八德大樓), which belongs to the KMT. It was also the campaign headquarters

of then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and his vice-president Lien Chan's (連戰) when they were running the 1996 presidential election.

Ma's campaign spokesman Wu An-wen (吳恩文) told the Taipei Times that Ma's campaign team had not focused on any particular considerations when deciding the location and the opening date for the headquarters.

"We just felt that everything would be ready to go before Oct. 27 and it would be the right day to open the headquarters. When we were deciding, we didn't know when Lee's headquarters would be established, Wu said.

"In addition, Ma's new headquarters is not too far away from the city government [offices} which also fits with Ma's requirements -- so we took it," Wu said.

The Taipei City elections for mayor and city council will be held on Dec. 7.