With only 35 days to go before the elections, campaign rallies were held nationwide yesterday as politicians from all political parties staged an all-out effort to solicit votes.
The DPP administration brought out its campaign heavyweights at a rally in Taipei, while former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) appeared in Taipei County to stump for a TSU candidate. Li Shen (李慎), mother of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), was also made a campaign super stumper in her hometown of Tainan to court votes for the DPP.
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
At the DPP rally in Taipei City yesterday, Chen called on all people to unite, and reiterated his ideal of universal service to all Taiwanese people.
"Let's unite and not split over support of A-Bian," Chen said.
Commenting on the dispute between the DPP and the opposition camp over who has the power to name the Cabinet, Chen said that it is reasonable that such power resides with president and the ruling party rather than the majority party in the legislature.
"After the election, the power of appointing the Cabinet will still belong to the president. Under this principle, we support the idea of naming capable and competent people as members of the Cabinet without considering their party background," Chen said. "Under the KMT's rule in the past five decades, the KMT had never recruited a single DPP Cabinet member."
Gaining attention at the rally was the appearance of Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Hsin-yi (
Lin, a Taiwanese representative at the just-concluded APEC meeting in Shanghai, told the rally that Taiwanese could see the barbaric and arrogant behavior of China from broadcasts on TV. Lin then called upon citizens to unite in their support of Taiwan.
Also campaigning yesterday, former president Lee continued to advocate his idea of streamlining the legislature, saying cutting the current 225 seats in half would save about NT$25 billion for public construction.
In Tainan, the president's hometown, Chen's mother stumped for two DPP candidates, Lee Chun-yee (
Li expressed her gratitude for the town's support of her son and appealed to the public to continue to support the party by sending DPP candidates to the legislature.
On the pan-blue camp side, KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
Both Lien and Ma blamed Chen for what they said was his inability to tackle the country's economic woes. Ma demanded Chen yield the power of appointing the Cabinet to the KMT should the former ruling party win the majority of seats in the year-end election.
In response to Chen's allegation that the KMT failed to hand over legal files and documents in the process of transferring power, Lien said Chen is "shivering because he lacks experience and competence."
Chen recently revealed in a soon-to-be-published book that the KMT did not hand over vital papers and records about its operations while in power.
Lien also criticized Chen, saying that he was only good at blaming the nation's economic problems on the opposition parties. "He [Chen] has nothing but a chattering mouth," Lien said.
Yesterday morning, Ma said people have lost patience in waiting for things to improve and that Chen should hand over Cabinet-naming powers to the KMT.
Ma said that, with numerous competent and capable people in the KMT, only the KMT, together with other parties in the pan-blue camp, can lead the country to overcome Taiwan's difficulties.
People First Party Chairman James Soong (
In the morning rally, Soong said Chen has a selective memory on political affairs. First, Soong said, Chen "forgot" what happened during his personal meeting with him, but then remembered that former president Lee Teng-hui (
In the evening, Soong told the rally that he lost the presidential election last year because of cheating by vote-counting authorities.
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