President Chen Shui-bian (
The DPP has scheduled more than 30 massive rallies for the last two weeks prior to the elections, with two to three rallies every night.
Chen, who has just concluded a four-week truck tour around the country, participated in the first of the rallies on Friday in Nantou and Changhua counties.
PHOTO: CHENG SHU-TING, TAIPEI TIMES
Rallies were held in Chiayi City and Pingtung County yesterday and will be held in Taipei and Taoyuan counties today.
Chen and Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) were to both take part in the rally in Chiayi City, with the theme of "protecting the holy land of democracy, continuing green rule" to boost the re-election bid of Chiayi Mayor Chen Li-chen (陳麗貞).
DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), a former Pingtung County commissioner, was to join the rally in Pingtung County to stump for Tsao Chi-hung (曹啟鴻), the party's candidate for the county's commissioner.
Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) will join Chen and Su today in the Taipei County rally in support of Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉), the DPP's candidate for Taipei County commissioner.
Meanwhile, Lu and Hsieh will attend the rally in Taoyuan County today.
According to DPP officials, the president's truck-tour has lifted the approval rating of the DPP. The party's ratings had plunged to a record low because of the profiteering scandal surrounding the Kaohsiung MRT project involving former Presidential Office deputy secretary-general Chen Che-nan (
The president will also participate in the party's pro-reform marches on Sunday, with the goal of mobilizing 600,000 participants.
In related news, the Central Election Commission (CEC) said yesterday that it will only announce the ballots garnered by each candidate in the Dec. 3 elections after all the ballots have been counted in the approximately 14,000 polling stations around the country.
The CEC said three different boxes will be used for the ballots for city and county chiefs, city and county councilors, and village and township chiefs.
As ballots cast in the wrong boxes will also be considered valid, there will be no announcement of results until the counting of the ballots from all the elections is complete, in case some ballots are placed in the wrong boxes, the commission said.
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