Bringing the focus of today's legislative elections on to domestic issues, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (
Speaking in response to President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) promises on domestic issues at Taipei 101 yesterday, Lien presented nine educational and economic policies that the pan-blue alliance would promote if the pan-blue camp can win a majority today.
Making a play on the Taiwanese words for "excellent," Lien showed the media party advertisements delineating its "Wu Kao Chan" (有九讚) policies.
Lien again called on Chen yesterday morning to consider nominating Deputy Legislative Speaker Chiang Pin-kun (
NINE POINTS
If given a majority, the pan-blue alliance will work to, first, promote a youth educational benefits statute (
Secondly, Lien said, the pan-blue alliance will work to increase the amount of money invested in education from 2 percent to 6 percent of the nation's GDP.
Third, Lien proposed the creation of a statute providing for equal treatment for both private and public school teachers in their retirement (
There is no government-provided retirement plan for farmers, added Lien, criticizing the government for having enough money to pay for the controversial NT$610.8 billion special arms budget and not for providing the nation's farmers with a comfortable retirement. If the pan-blue camp wins a majority, it will push for the creation of a health insurance statute (
Fifth, the pan-blue alliance will push for a better Social Service and Rescue Law (
The pan-blue camp will also push for the creation of a statute allowing voluntary military service (
Again criticizing the Chen administration on the NT$610.8 billion arms budget, Lien also called for the formation of a statute regulating national large-scale arms purchases (
Lastly, Lien criticized the government for wasting the nation's resources, echoing evaluations by social groups estimating that government projects such as the failed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant project have wasted over NT$6 trillion of the public's money. As a result, the pan-blue alliance will push for a fiscal discipline law (
To help the party's chances today, Lien added his efforts to the party's telephone campaign for the elections yesterday morning, personally phoning supporters to remind them to vote tomorrow.
While phoning supporters, Lien told reporters that he hoped Chen would support Lien's recommendation Thursday that deputy legislative speaker Chiang Pin-kun (江丙坤) be made the next premier in the case of a pan-blue majority, given his strong background in economic planning.
NEW PREMIER
Lien told media on Thursday that should the pan-blue camp gain a majority in today's elections, the alliance would recommend that Chen nominate Chiang to be the next premier. The recommendation came as part of Lien's recent calls to Chen to change the membership of the Cabinet to reflect the composition of the new legislature elected today, assuming a pan-blue majority.
The KMT presented yesterday the results of a public approval survey it had done on the possibility of Chiang as premier.
According to the Dec. 9 telephone survey, 39.4 percent of the survey's 1,080 respondents believed that Chiang would be more able to resolve the nation's economic problems in comparison to the 19.4 percent that preferred Premier Yu Shyi-kun.
A total of 41.2 percent expressed no opinion.
In regards to cross-strait issues, 31.3 percent of respondents considered Chiang to be a better candidate than Yu to deal with cross-strait relations, while 18.9 percent preferred Yu and 49.8 percent had no preference.
Additionally, the survey found that 26.3 percent thought Chiang could better resolve conflicts between the ruling and opposition camps, 24.2 percent preferred Yu, and 49.6 percent had no comment.
The survey indicates that the people consider Chiang a much better candidate for premier than Yu, said KMT spokesperson Chang Jung-kung (
Chen said yesterday in response to Lien that the DPP had enough talent to fill the premier position beyond Yu, without having to consider Chiang.
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