Independent presidential hopeful Shih Ming-te (施明德) said the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) stands to gain the most from “manipulating innocent high-school students” into conflict with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) over proposed changes to high-school curriculum guidelines.
According to Shih, the Ministry of Education’s controversial “minor adjustments” to high-school social studies guidelines could have been easily blocked by the DPP in the Legislative Yuan.
Citing National Taiwan University College of Social Sciences professor Liu Ching-yi (劉靜怡), Shih said the DPP could have used Clause 2 of Article 60 of the Act Governing the Legislature Exercise of Power (立法院職權行使法) to empower the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee to review the changes.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
Under Article 62 of the law, the Legislative Yuan was within its rights to order the Ministry of Education to conduct further reviews or drop the curriculum changes.
According to Shih, despite reminders from the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, the DPP ignored such courses of action and instead pursued a separate agenda with little to no legal effect.
“The DPP simply wishes to stir the fires of the anti-President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) sentiment prevalent in society, but has no intention of impeaching the president,” Shih said. “The guiding strategy for the party now is to do and speak less to minimize the chances of causing controversy and mistakes.”
“This kind of sentiment is bureaucratic and aims only to use the KMT’s mistakes against them to win the upcoming elections,” Shih said, adding that with such fertile ground for the DPP campaign, the party could not afford to “handle” or “solve” the problems at hand.
“Many have asked me on the street or online to organize an event to impeach Ma,” Shih said, given that he organized an impeachment campaign against then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in 2006 and that it would not be fair [to Chen] if he did not organize one against Ma.
“It has nothing to do with fairness. I organized rallies against Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), against Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) and against Chen — these actions were in defense of Taiwanese values,” Shih said.
“The DPP is the greatest opposition party in the nation, and it is its tradition and duty to organize an event calling for Ma to step down,” he said, adding that the party has more obligation, power, resources and organization than he does.
“The KMT cannot be trusted to hold to non-violent principles or to guard the traditions of Taiwanese democracy, nor should the KMT be allowed to, as it has never upheld or defended any of the values Taiwanese hold dear,” Shih said.
Shih said his bid for the presidency was due to a lack of conviction from the DPP to protect, defend and uphold any pro-local or universal values.
Shih was one of the founders of the DPP and briefly served as its chairman before resigning from the party in 2000.
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