To welcome the coming of the Chinese New Year, Taiwan's presidential candidates kept busy yesterday by shaking hands, meeting the public -- and handing out red envelopes (
The candidates on the KMT ticket, Lien Chan (連戰) and Vincent Siew (蕭萬長), canvassed separately early in the day, looking for support in Taipei and central Taiwan.
They then went together to Nantou County for the traditional nian yei fan (
PHOTO: CHUANG CHUNG-LUNG, LIBERTY TIMES
In Taichung City, Lien visited with war veterans -- whose traditional support for the KMT has partly shifted to independent presidential candidate James Soong (宋楚瑜) -- and vowed to implement new measures that would benefit them, such as regular subsidies for the care of their family members.
"We believe that over 40 percent of voters from villages where veterans live in Taichung now support the Lien-Siew ticket," Lien campaign staffers said yesterday.
Siew, meanwhile, met with municipal police in Taipei during an inspection and stressed that public security should be beefed up from the Chinese New Year holidays until the new president is inaugurated on May 20.
Siew thanked the police officers for their work during the holidays, adding that if elected, the Executive Yuan would put the National Police Administration at the ministerial level. The DPP's Chen Shui-bian (
In his own Chinese New Year speech yesterday, Chen urged people in Taiwan to prepare to accept a new government led by his party, which he said would be devoted to accomplishing the "sec-ond stage of democratic reform" in Taiwan.
"President Lee Teng-hui (
Chen also visited a traditional market in Taipei, where he warned the KMT's presidential candidate against trying to abuse government resources by making too many promises which could eventually place further financial burdens on taxpayers.
"We hope people will receive lots of red envelopes during the Chinese New Year, but we also suggest that people should never take ones from the KMT, ones that will be paid for by our descen-dants," he said.
James Soong's wife, Chen Wan-shui (
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