"Annette Lu is [the president's] biggest accomplice [and the main reason] why Chen Shui-bian hasn't stepped down yet," Shih was quoted as saying in an interview published by the Chinese-language United Daily News (UDN) yesterday.
Shih also criticized Ma for refusing to grant permit to the protest.
"Ma talks about the Constitution at one point and discusses the Assembly and Parade Law (集會遊行法) at another point, and changes his position all the time," Shih said.
However, even before last Tuesday's unlawful protest, the campaign's decision-making process had been beset with problems.
From decisions on rehearsing sit-ins to when nationwide protests should be launched or how street demonstrations should proceed, the decisions were often capricious and changed at the last minute.
Wang Yeh-li (王業立), a political science professor at Tunghai University, said the police department's decision to revoke the campaign's permit for the sit-in on Ketagalan Boulevard was a sign of the campaign's disintegration.
"As the campaign loses its major protest stage and people have different views on how the protest should continue, it is difficult to maintain the movement's energy, especially as the protests have been going on for a month," he said.
The department yesterday further denied the campaign's application to hold sit-ins on Ketagalan Boulevard from Oct. 29 to Nov. 9.
Agreeing that the campaign has entered a difficult stage, Chang Mau-kuei (張茂桂), a research fellow at the Institute of Sociology at Academia Sinica, said the campaign should expand its agenda if it hopes to continue the movement.
Shih dismissed concerns that the campaign was losing momentum, and insisted that the shrinking of the scale of its movement was meant to preserve energy for its long-term battle.
Yang, however, said that if the campaign failed to expand its narrow agenda of ousting Chen and join forces with more groups, such as the labor union and student bodies, to turn the campaign into a real civic movement, the campaign would never regain its strength.
Also see editorial:
Editorial: It's all about getting Chen
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