Although the national agricultural summit eased the pressure on the government over its reform of grassroots credit units, the summit itself had little impact on the upcoming Taipei and Kaohsiung mayoral elections, political observers said yesterday.
"It would have had more impact if there were county or township elections looming as opposed to those of Taipei and Kaohsiung where there are not many farmers and fishermen," said Taipei Society Chairman Ku Chung-hwa (顧忠華).
However, the summit, which ended Saturday, may have successfully reversed the negative image of the government's about-face blunder, Ku said.
Chin Heng-wei (
"The true crisis here is not the reform of grassroots co-ops but the intended resignation of Premier Yu Shyi-kun," Chin said. "As the premier eventually decided to stay on, it'll be up to him to figure out a way to restore public faith in the government as he continues to push for reforms."
Wu Tung-yeh (吳東野), a political scientist at National Chengchi University, said that the influence of the summit needs further observation.
"It may put the government in a better light for the moment, but the end of the conference marks the beginning of everything. It still remains to be seen what the next step the government plans to take is," Wu said.
The Executive Yuan's summit attempted to solve the problem of the high non-performing loan ratio of the farmers' and fishermen's credit unions.
About 160 delegates from the government and the agricultural sector attended the nine-hour conference in which a five-point consensus on future reform of the sector was reached.
Delegates agreed to make the Cabinet's Council of Agriculture the sole agency for supervising farmers' and fishermen's associations' credit units, establish a national agricultural bank, speedily enact an agricultural financing law, take appropriate measures to protect deposits in the credit units and increase the competitiveness of the agricultural industry.
Farmers' and fishermen's representatives also made six requests including the establishment of a government-invested bank and the passage by the legislature of the agricultural financing bill during the current legislative session.
Although neither the farmers and fishermen's requests nor the conclusions are binding on the government, Yu pledged that the government will refer to the consensus while formulating government policies.
Commenting on the mayoral elections as a whole, Chin said that it sounds preposterous for the opposition camp to allege that the DPP is giving up the Taipei mayoral election and switching their focus to Kaohsiung where the elections are picking up steam.
"It doesn't make any sense because we're talking about two different DPP candidates taking part in two different elections held at two different places. Why on earth do they want to choose one battle to fight?" Chin said.
He added that it is not surprising that the DPP's candidate for the Taipei City mayoral election, Lee Ying-yuan (李應元), is facing an uphill battle because the electorate in Taipei has long been supportive of the pan-blue camp.
"Look at President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) when he was seeking re-election in 1998. He lost the election despite his high approval rating," Chin said. "He didn't lose the election because he was not good. His defeat resulted from the structure of the electorate."
RSS