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DPP caucus calls for end to candidates' bickering

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus yesterday called on the party's four presidential aspirants to stop bickering or risk being boycotted by the party in the primary next month.

DPP caucus whip Wang Sing-nan (王幸男) said grassroots DPP members are "extremely upset" about the mudslinging tactics that the hopefuls -- Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), DPP Chairman Yu Shyi-kun and former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) -- are using.

If the undesirable and tasteless campaigns continue, they will be rejected by supporters, Wang said.

Wang said the DPP legislative caucus today would publicize a set of "counter-measures" against this kind of campaigning.

The DPP whip made the remarks after Lu, Yu and Hsieh criticized Su at a news conference on Friday for allegedly using public resources to fund his campaign for the party's nomination.

Lu said she didn't want to be seen as a relentless critic.

"I'm not. I'm very gentle," she said yesterday morning while addressing a training camp for female leaders in Taipei.

She also implied President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) should be held responsible for the bickering.

On Saturday Chen called for a halt to infighting, saying their opponent was the Chinese Communist Party.

Commenting on leadership, Lu criticized Su over the Olympic torch relay controversy.

"This incident gives the public an opportunity to examine the performance of the government," she said. "While the Executive Yuan should have identified the problem in the first place, they did not detect it until the last minute."

At his campaign event yesterday, Su continued to rebuff allegations that he had been using public resources for his campaign.

Su compared his critics to Lee Tsu-chun (李子春), a local prosecutor who took the initiative to investigate vote-buying allegations against DPP candidate You Ying-lung (游盈隆) in the 2003 by-election for the commissioner of Hualien County.

Lee at the time said Yu's campaign to offer a NT$5,000 monthly stipend to the leaders of the nation's Aboriginal townships was a vote-buying strategy, but the Supreme Court in January upheld a Hualien District Court ruling that You was not guilty of buying votes.

Su said yesterday the accusations were very serious.

"It is the KMT that has always used this kind of accusation to attack the DPP in the past," he said.

To give an example, he said, the KMT accused the DPP government of vote-buying to help Hsieh, who was then seeking re-election in the Kaohsiung mayoral election of 2002, in funding a project to improve the quality of the city's tap water.
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