The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday unveiled its second campaign advertisement for next week’s local government elections, seeking to attract more support by attacking the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Titled “What did the green governance guarantee?” the commercial attacks Chiayi County Commissioner Chen Ming-wen (陳明文) and Yunlin County Commissioner Su Chih-fen (蘇治芬) for their involvement in corruption scandals, and condemns Pingtung County Commissioner Tsao Chi-hung (曹啟鴻) for failing to give subsidies to victims on time in the wake of Typhoon Morakot.
“We need to use attack as a means of defense and help campaign for our candidates in Yunlin, Chiayi and Pingtung counties,” KMT Spokesman Lee Chien-jung (李建榮) said yesterday at KMT headquarters.
PHOTO: TSAI TSUNG-HSIEN, TAIPEI TIMES
Yunlin, Chiayi and Pingtung counties are traditional DPP strongholds, and the KMT is hoping to win elections in the those places.
Lee said President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), in his capacity as KMT chairman, would lead party officials and Central Standing Committee members to campaign for candidates in Chiayi and Yunlin today and tomorrow.
Lee also condemned DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and other party heavyweights for making groundless accusations against the KMT during the campaign.
In response to recent controversy surrounding Ma’s public discussion of an opinion poll on the Yilan County commissioner election, Lee said the party would respect the Central Election Commission’s (CEC) decision on whether Ma broke the law.
Lee declined to comment on DPP criticism of the CEC’s Yilan branch after it said it wouldn’t make its decision public until after the election, saying the DPP shouldn’t play up the issue.
The DPP accused Ma of breaking Article 53 of the Election and Recall Act (選舉罷免法), which prohibits individuals and political parties from reporting on, publishing, commenting on or quoting the results of opinion polls in the 10 days leading up to an election.
The DPP said yesterday that the KMT and the pan-blue camp should be ashamed of itself, rather than accusing the DPP of misconduct.
DPP Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said that although Ma insisted on running a clean campaign, nine KMT candidates had been indicted for vote-buying while all DPP nominees have remained clean.
Each vote costs between NT$2,000 and NT$5,000, he said, calling the KMT “shameless” for creating the “most unethical” election in Taiwan in five decades.
Meanwhile, the DPP headquarters published a list of figures meant to show that Ma has been the “worst president” in Taiwan history and urged the public to express their displeasure by voting against the KMT next Saturday.
DPP Spokesman Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) said that after Ma took office in May last year, Taiwan’s economic growth has been in the red for five consecutive quarters at a negative 2.53 percent rate, its worst performance ever.
Last year, an unprecedented 550,000 factories and companies shut down. Unemployment also hit a new peak at 6.13 percent, with more than 653,000 people jobless, he said.
The wealth disparity in Taiwan also continued to grow, the DPP said, adding that at least 12,759 households were in poverty. The government deficit was at a record high of NT$4.15 trillion (US$129 million), while net income shrunk 5.54 percent compared with the same period last year, the spokesman said.
Increased economic hardship also led to instability in homes as evidenced by the 84,195 cases of domestic abuse reported last year, the DPP said, but did not elaborate on what percentage of the total cases took place before May during the DPP government.
“The government’s foremost task is to improve social welfare and it is obvious that Ma’s administration has failed to do so. The public must send him a message and a warning through our ballots to show we are not happy with this government,” he said.
Meanwhile, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) yesterday inspected Penghu County, saying that the Executive Yuan would back the local government in its efforts to use its natural resources to attract more tourists.
Wu said that the Government Information Office would introduce measures to encourage the film and television industries to shoot scenes in Penghu to promote tourism, adding that the government hoped Chinese tourists would include Penghu on their itinerary.
Despite making no mention of next Saturday’s election, Wu, accompanied by local Penghu officials, lauded the Penghu County Government led by Commissioner Wang Chien-fa (王乾發) for implementing 10 major construction projects to boost tourism.
Wang is seeking re-election.
On Thursday, Wu inspected Kinmen County and promised to begin the long-delayed plan to construct a bridge between Kinmen and Little Kinmen.
The bridge is dubbed the “pontoon bridge” by locals as it is said to be assembled whenever there is an election and disassembled afterwards when politicians abandon their campaign promises.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SHIH SHIU-CHUAN
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