The presidential election enters its final week today after a weekend of intense campaigning involving some of the biggest political rallies Taiwan has ever seen.
In Kaohsiung, the KMT and DPP staged rallies a safe distance apart in the nation's second-biggest city, drawing crowds in the hundreds of thousands.
DPP hopeful Chen Shui-bian (
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
With the backing of his party's elected leaders among seven cities and counties in southern Taiwan, more than 3,000 buses were employed to ferry in supporters, bringing traffic on the city's streets to a near standstill.
At the Chung-cheng Stadium, KMT candidate Lien Chan (
"I have to clarify that Lien Chan is the only candidate I support," Lee said, referring to a rumor that his heart was really with the DPP's candidate.
As if the point needed clarification, Lee took a direct swipe at Chen, saying that his political immaturity had been exposed recently by some of the impractical policies he had presented.
"Chen's National Policy Advisory Committee is absolutely not working," Lee said to raucous cheers.
Though independent James Soong (
Claiming that the KMT had sent messages to his camp asking him to be Lien's premier, the former provincial governor said: "...they have reversed their stance and are asking me to return to the party. This just goes to show that the KMT is having a difficult time, and that they need me to go back to the party to consolidate their own voter base."
Members of Lien's campaign, however, denied there was any truth to Soong's remarks, dis-missing them as "Soong's own wishful thinking."
Also, Liu Sung-pan (
Nevertheless, the DPP's Chen was not about to be pushed out of the media spotlight. Fresh from the endorsement of prominent figures such as Academia President Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲), Chen followed up yesterday by adding more prominent names to his planned presidential advisory committee. They include Lin Huai-min (林懷民), founder of the Cloud Gate dance company and businessman Kao Chi-min (高志明), president of I-Mei Foods Corp and publisher of the Taiwan News. From academia, the presidents of Chiao-tung University, Yang Ming University and Chung Cheng University, and the president of the National Institute of the Arts announced they would join the advisory group.
On the cross-strait front, the military has dismissed the possibility of China launching any kind of demonstration in the coming week that would be designed to influence the election.
In a news program aired by CTS, Minister of National Defense Tang Fei (
"The information we have suggests they are not going to stage a large scale military exercise over the next week," Tang said.
Tang contrasted the current tensions with the situation four years ago when the People's Liberation Army (PLA) lobbed ballistic missiles into the shipping lanes off the island and the US sent in a battle carrier group.
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