The Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) delayed celebration of its election win will finally start next Sunday with a series of thank-you rallies around the country.
The original rally, scheduled for the evening of April 10 in Taipei's Chungshan No. 1 Park, has been changed to April 11 and will instead take place in Tainan City and Tainan County, the home county of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
The switch from Taipei to Tainan in the south is believed to have been made to avoid a possible confrontation with supporters of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-People First Party (PFP) alliance who have threatened to stage protests to coincide with the celebration.
DPP Deputy Secretary General Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) yesterday said that a total of four celebration rallies would be held in Tainan City and Tainan County on April 11, Taoyuan County on April 17 and Taichung City on April 24.
Cheng Wen-tsan (
The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) has also planned to hold similar thank-you rallies on April 10 in Kaohsiung City. Former president Lee Teng-hui (
In addition to the four rallies, the Government Information Office and the Council for Cultural Affairs will hold inauguration parties on the evenings of May 19 and May 20, the inauguration date of the president.
The May 19 inauguration party will be held in Kaohsiung City and the May 20 party will be held in Taipei County.
Meanwhile, Cheng yesterday said the formation of a reform task force to beef up coordination between the government and the DPP would be high on the agenda of the April 10 congress meeting.
In a meeting with high-ranking officials at DPP party headquarters yesterday, Chen instructed that such a task force be formed to develop strategies for party administration in the medium and the long term, as well as for the four major elections to be held before 2008.
Cheng yesterday said the formation of the task force was expected to be approved at the April 10 congress meeting.
"Chen's renewal of his party chairmanship in July will represent the consolidation of the synchronization of party and administrative affairs. This mechanism will be further strengthened in Chen's second presidential term," Cheng said.
On the upcoming legislative elections in December, Cheng said the party had reached consensus on cooperating with the TSU to snare a legislative majority.
"The party has agreed to cooperate with the TSU in the year-end legislative elections in the hope that it will enable the pan-green camp to become the majority in the legislature," Cheng said.
On proposed amendments to regulations selecting candidates for lawmakers-at-large, Cheng said the proposal that overseas and Aboriginal lawmakers be nominated by the party chairman was likely to be dropped.
He said that the original regulation, in which performance in the party primary and the opinion poll was equally weighted to determine the successful nominees, would remain.
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