Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday ducked a fresh challenge from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) opponent Eric Chu (朱立倫) to take part in a televised debate before the Nov. 27 elections.
The proposed showdown, originally set to be held by a local election committee, is now in danger of being called off, after the two Sinbei City mayoral candidates reportedly reached an impasse on the debate format.
Tsai’s campaign backed out of the organizing committee last week, after saying in a statement it believed the organizers were biased. The decision was made after the organizers insisted that the names of people asking questions during the debate be withheld.
Tsai campaign spokesperson Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) said on Friday the decision to boycott the committee was because its format was “unacceptable” and raised concerns that it went against the public interests of accountability and transparency.
However, in a last ditch effort to salvage the one remaining debate planned for Sinbei City (the soon-to-be-renamed Taipei County), after talks for another series of debates nationwide broke-down earlier, Chu announced that he would drop most of his conditions on the format of the debate.
“Tsai has to come to the debate,” he told a special press conference to address the issue. “And to ensure that Tsai is content, she can choose whatever media organization she wants to hold this debate, and I will accept it. She can also choose any host, which I will also accept. If she doesn’t want a debate, she should make her viewpoint clear and admit this. She doesn’t need to circle around the issue and I will no longer pressure her if this is the case,” he said.
If a debate were held, Chu said that the first question he would ask the DPP candidate was why she opposed his election promise to heavily expand the city’s MRT network, quadrupling its track length and in the process, creating three new circular lines.
“I want to especially ask Tsai, why is it that the three circular lines are a ‘piece of [beef] that Sinbei City is not able to afford?’” he asked, in reference to the DPP candidate’s suggestion earlier that the MRT projects would likely stall because of a lack of funding.
At a campaign event yesterday, Tsai declined to say whether she would return to the bargaining table. Instead, she again raised concerns over the organizing committee, saying that her campaign no longer had confidence in the election commission because of their “attitudes and methods.”
“We are not trying to hold up the debate on technicalities, we have been patiently negotiating with them [before] and showed up at all the meetings,” she said.
Speaking on Chu’s direct challenge, she said, however, that it sounded like “something that someone of the verge of losing would say.”
Turning attention away from the debate onto her policy guide unveiled in September, Tsai said her opponent should “quickly and responsibly” follow suit.
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