A group of pan-blue legislators yesterday staged a sit-in in front of the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) headquarters in Taipei to protest the DPP's accusations about Chinese Nationalist Party(KMT) Chairman Lien Chan's (
"The DPP has maliciously attacked [Lien's] reputation. We hope that the sit-in protest in front of the DPP's headquarters will encourage the party to do some introspection," KMT Legislator Huang Chao-shun (
At a press conference held before the group set off for the DPP's headquarters, Huang accused the DPP of deliberately exaggerating the size of Lien's real estate holdings in its campaign literature.
Huang was referring to the DPP's campaign booklets detailing claims about the manner in which Lien and his father had amassed their family fortune. In the updated edition of the booklet released last Thursday, the DPP said that, in a statement two weeks ago, Lien failed to mention "699.45 kungmu" of real estate he owned in 1989 in Taipei. One kungmu equals 100m2, and 699.45 kungmu is equivalent to approximately 20,000 ping.
The day after the booklet's publication the KMT-People First Party (PFP) alliance challenged the DPP's claim by referring to Lien's tax return for 1989, which states the property was only 228 ping.
In their revised booklet, the DPP had "changed the unit of measurement, which is supposed to be in ping, to kungmu... and thus exaggerated [Lien's real estate holdings] by tens of thousands of times," Huang said.
Before the sit-in, Huang, along with fellow pan-blue legislators Lu Shiow-yen (
On Sunday the KMT-PFP alliance threatened to sue the DPP if it did not apologize for making a mistake in its claim about the size of Lien's real estate holdings.
Yesterday's sit-in, which lasted approximately 30 minutes, was the latest in an array of actions staged by the KMT following the DPP's accusations.
Besides threatening the DPP with the law, KMT Secretary-General Lin Fong-cheng (
Monday's confrontation ended with the pan-blue delegation angrily stomping out of the DPP's headquarters.
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