Pan-blues take sideswipe at Cabinet with ad

Just one day after Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) urged both the pan-green and pan-blue camps to call a halt to negative campaigning, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-People First Party (PFP) alliance yesterday unveiled its latest TV spot poking fun at Cabinet members.

The 30-second ad -- a montage of news clips of former and incumbent Cabinet members' "off-beat" moments -- aimed to undermine President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) choice of administration colleagues.

"We hope TV viewers will take a relaxed view of this ad when, which is presented in a relaxed and humorous style," KMT spokesman Justin Chou (周守訓) told reporters.

The alliance had planed to produce 20 TV campaign ads in the run up to March's presidential election to promote the candidacy of KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and his PFP counterpart and running mate James Soong (宋楚瑜).

Among the officials picked on in the TV spot are former minister of economic affairs Christian Tsung (宗才怡), former Government Information Office (GIO) director-general Arthur Iap (葉國興) and Minister of the Interior Yu Cheng-hsien (余政憲).

The advert featured Tsung performing a provocative dance, Iap making a shooting-gun gesture at press photographers with his hand and Yu singing karaoke on a naval vessel, as well as footage of him following his admittance of accepting massages from unlicensed masseuses.

Noting that during the past three years of Chen's presidency he had already changed three premiers, four vice premiers, three ministers of economics and four GIO director-generals, Chou asked "how could the public expect good policy from the government with its many changes of cabinet members?"

Meanwhile, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday publicized a specially designed poker set to "unmask Lien and Soong's true faces."

The deck, designed by his office, featured cartoon pictures of Lien and Soong on one side with the other side carrying blunt remarks made by Lien and Soong when they faced off in the 2000 presidential election.

During the 2000 presidential election, Soong, a former KMT secretary-general, ran as an independent while Lien ran as the KMT's presidential candidate.

Both fiercely attacked each other during the campaign, with Soong calling Lien incompetent and lazy and the KMT running a series of advertisements attacking Soong's credibility and integrity and painting him as a greedy and deceitful billionaire.

"Many people wonder how these two, who fiercely slammed and lashed each other with bitter words [during the 2000 presidential election,] can now join hands and campaign together" Cho said, adding that the Lien-Soong alliance in the upcoming presidential race was a "marriage of convenience meant to cheat people out of their vote."

Soong and Lien "care not about the people and the nation but about divvying up of the spoils of office," Cho said.

The poker cards were not for sale, according to Cho's office.