"All of these [factors] haunt the ruling party's campaign for Lee," Chiu told the Taipei Times.
Therefore, no matter how much effort Lee puts into his campaign, the electoral atmosphere has not attracted a great deal of attention "because the overall political climate has somewhat cooled voters' enthusiasm. This has thus indirectly hurt Lee's bid for the Taipei mayoral seat," he said
Chiu suggested that one reason Lee has found it difficult to win the acceptance of Taipei citizens is that he has been hand-picked by Chen.
Chiu said that although Ma had initially declined KMT Chairman Lien Chan's (連戰) invitation to run in the 1998 Taipei mayoral election, Ma eventually accepted, making an independent decision.
"Lee, however, didn't become a Taipei mayoral candidate on his own accord, but was called up by his party," Chiu said.
"Lee now might be wholeheartedly into the campaign game for his mayoral bid," Chiu said. "[But] the fact that he didn't step out on his own in the first place might turn off some voters."
Chiu further commented that it might have been a mistake for Lee's camp to play the "president card."
"It makes it seem as if the Taipei mayoral election is a prelude to Chen's presidential re-election bid in 2004, rather than a campaign for Lee's current mayoral bid," he said.
Hong-kong feet
"Such an impression is especially apparent when Chen, on several occasions campaigning for Lee, touched upon topics such as [Ma's] Hong-Kong feet versus Lee's `Taiwan feet,' and calling on Ma to promise that he [Ma] would not run in the 2004 presidential election," Chiu said.
But given that elections by nature are unpredictable, one can assume that there will still be some degree of heating-up in these last five days before voters go to polls.
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