Sat, Aug 30, 2003 page2

• Pan-blue camp launches tuition-fee protest

  • By Huang Tai-lin / STAFF REPORTER
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  The pan-blue camp yesterday launched a nationwide signature drive to protest what it said was overly high university tuition fees, the wide gap between rich and poor and hikes in national health insurance premiums.

  "It is our goal to solicit at least 1 million signatures across the nation within a week," said Tu Chien-teh (杜建德), director of the KMT's Taipei branch office, at a joint press conference with representatives from the PFP and New Party.

  Tu said booths would be placed in public areas such as train stations throughout the nation's 25 cities and counties.

  All three parties will mobilize their legislators, city and county government chiefs, councilors, township chiefs and borough wardens to promote the campaign, which will end next Thursday, Tu said.

  After the signatures are counted, the KMT and PFP legislature caucuses will present them to the Presidential Office on Friday, he said.

  KMT legislative caucus leader Lee Chia-chin (李嘉進) said the campaign was designed to allow members of the public to vent their discontent at the rising unemployment rate and high college tuition fees and health insurance fees. He said the DPP administration cared only about politicking and campaign issues and not about people's wellbeing.

  At the press conference, New Party City Councilor Fei Hung-tai (費鴻泰) stressed that the signature campaign was not intended to create confrontation between the pan-blue and the pan-green camps.

  "The signature campaign is not about politics," Fei said. "It is about letting mainstream opinion come to the light and allowing President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to hear the voice of the grassroots."

  In response, DPP Deputy Secretary-General Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) said that the pan-blue camp controlled a majority in the Legislative Yuan and was now taking its tactics of boycotts and smears from the legislature into the streets.

  Lee said that before the DPP came to power in 2000, it was a responsible opposition party.

  "Whenever [the then opposition DPP] voiced opposition to a certain policy, it would state its position and bring forward its own alternative policy," Lee said.

  "The pan-blue camp should act responsibly," Lee said. "It ought not to simply voice opposition and offer no alternative policy or substantive suggestions of its own."

  "Everyone can launch a signature drive," he added, "but the point is not how many signatures you can collect but what your [alternative] policies are."

  Noting that unemployment is a global problem and Taiwan's unemployment is not so grave compared with that of other countries, Lee said the DPP administration has been working to address joblessness with a responsible attitude.

  "Besides, lately all financial periodicals have analyzed or reported that Taiwan's economy is on the road to recovery," Lee said. "The pan-blue camp, instead of scaring away investors, should act responsibly and make suggestions."
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