It has been three days since pan-blue protesters started their demonstration in front of the Presidential Office to demand an immediate recount of Saturday's vote.
Free food and drinks were being supplied to the protesters yesterday as more supporters poured in from other cities and towns, encouraged by members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-People First Party (PFP) alliance.
Ting Shou-chung (
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
The mass protest showed no signs of coming to an end any time soon after getting permission from the Taipei City Government to continue yesterday.
Political observers said that timely gestures of goodwill from leaders of both the pan-green and pan-blue camps would be the best solution to resolve the apparent deadlock.
"If leaders from both sides are willing to take one step back in this situation, the protest can be easily resolved," political commentator Fang Li-da (
"Many of the protesters have been there for hours and they are tired, while [KMT Chairman] Lien Chan (
The crowd of protesters started gathering in front of the Presidential Office before dawn on Sunday morning under the lead of Lien, Soong and Legislative Yuan Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
Lien lost the presidential race to President Chen Shui-bian (
Denouncing the election as unfair, he demanded an immediate recount.
Lien also raised questions about the apparent assassination attempt on Chen and Vice President Annette Lu (
"Politicians should not be so cold-blooded as to have only their political interests in mind, manipulating the people like pieces in their chess game," Fang said.
At a press conference on Monday night, Lien responded to a question about his plans for the protesters by saying the issue was out of his hands, as it had risen to a constitutional level to become a question of legality and legitimacy of the government.
"It is easy to lead people into the streets, but hard to get them to stop," said Hsieh Chin-ho (
Hsieh said politicians probably don't want the protest to come to and end soon, as it serves their own political interests.
The pan-green camp might want the protest to drag on, which would put Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), a senior KMT official, in a difficult position, as well as giving the pan-greens ammunition for an attack on the pan-blue camp in the year-end legislative elections, Hsieh said.
On the other hand, the pan-blue camp might also wish the protest to continue, as the massive crowd would serve their political interests by demonstrating their public support, analysts said.
Hsieh said that leaders of both camps displayed maturity and rationality when they canceled their mass campaign rallies following the attack on Chen and Lu, and "now it is again time for the leaders of both sides to demonstrate their maturity and rationality."
Referring to the pan-blue legislators who have taken turns addressing the protesters gathered at Ketagalan Boulevard from the back of a campaign truck, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator William Lai (賴清德) said: "If Lien were a responsible leader, he would not just lead the people here and then leave them there without any leadership except for a bunch of legislators thinking only of their own political interests."
"The demonstration has seemingly become a campaign stage for these legislators to gain public exposure," Lai said, referring to the year-end legislative elections.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching