Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Sinbei City mayoral candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫) yesterday intensified his attacks against Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), accusing her of being insincere and questioning her failure to show up at a TV debate.
However, the Tsai camp said previously she could not attend because of a schedule conflict coupled with the last-minute invitation.
During the recording session for what was supposed to be a debate held by a local election committee, Chu repeated some of his key campaign promises, including a ambitious extension of the MRT network in Sinbei City — the soon-to-be-renamed Taipei County — the creation of new, low-cost community housing and additional daycare subsidies.
It was a shame, he said, that Tsai wasn’t present to offer an alternative viewpoint or inform voters about her campaign platform.
“It’s deeply regrettable … it wasn’t the right approach,” he said. “Respect for voters and respect for electoral principles should be a fundamental principle [of any election].”
“For instance, if we are talking about [school tests], it would not be the right approach if students were able to pick and choose the subjects they had an advantage in, and only take tests and go to school for those subjects alone,” he said.
The taping was done yesterday morning by the Sinbei City election commission, which is responsible for election affairs in the to-be-formed special municipality, for broadcast on TV on Saturday, a week before the special municipality elections.
Chu used his 30-minute solo performance to expound on some of his ideas on how to empower Sinbei City’s economy, vowing to focus on improving the sports, culture and movie industry.
Using limited resources, he said, he would attempt to “create unlimited opportunities for the future.”
The KMT candidate, a former vice-premier who is considered a rising star within his party, said supporters and undecided voters alike should give him a chance.
He asked viewers to “come out and vote, otherwise [I] won’t be elected,” adding that voters should “choose a candidate whose heart is in Sinbei City.”
“Tsai is [too busy] enjoying life in the spotlight as DPP chairperson,” he said. “[She] shouldn’t forget that the post she is running for is Sinbei City mayor.”
The remarks were part of a volley of recent attacks by Chu and other KMT campaign officials over allegations that Tsai has so far refused to make her position clear on issues, including the proposed MRT expansion, community housing and urban renewal, which both the candidates have pledged to accelerate.
Tsai’s campaign has vehemently denied the accusations, characterizing the conflict over the debate as “political spit.”
The DPP candidate, a spokesperson said, had a conflict with a previously scheduled recording session with Google, part of the Internet giant’s ongoing series on the special municipality elections.
“The election commission only told us about the date of the debate on Thursday, while the interview [with Google] was scheduled more than two weeks ago,” campaign spokesperson Hsieh Hsin-ni (謝欣霓) said, adding that the late invitation was unfairly biased against Tsai’s campaign.
“Not only did it fail to respect [our] schedule, [the organizers] were prejudiced throughout the planning stages,” she said, referring to earlier accusations that organizers refused to publicize key information prior to the event.
At a campaign event following the Google interview, Tsai said “every candidate has a different method of releasing their campaign platform.”
“I believe … that the decision not to attend the debate was neither right nor wrong,” she said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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