Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday apologized -- not to Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), as his rival in the struggle for control of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) had demanded, but to Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and his fellow party members.
"I am sorry to see the recent negative media reports about the party's chairmanship election. As one of the candidates, I am willing to express my personal regret, no matter who should be responsible," Ma said.
He offered the apology at the launch yesterday of his camp's last promotional video before Saturday's election.
PHOTO: SUNG CHIH-HSIUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
The Wang camp on Monday threatened to file a defamation lawsuit if the Ma camp failed to apologize within 24 hours for making "false accusations" against Wang. Wang abandoned the plan the following day, saying that he did not want to create divisions within the party, and hoped Ma would reciprocate his goodwill gesture.
With Ma's camp fearing a low turnout rate in the election, the new promotional video urges the KMT's more than 1 million party members to come out and vote.
"It may be a short distance from your apartment door to the polling station, but it may be the road leading to the party's triumph in the presidential election in 2008," Ma says in the video.
PHOTO: SUNG CHIH-HSIUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
He said that he estimated the turnout rate for Saturday's election at about 45 percent.
The Taipei mayor yesterday cried foul over a decision by the KMT's election supervision committee on Tuesday to restore the right to vote of 6,818 party members in Yunlin County.
"We expect to lose at least 5,000 votes right there," he said.
The Ma camp claims that there are about 8,000 party members whose votes could be misused in the election to support Wang.
To solve this problem, as well as the vote-buying dilemma, Ma, a former minister of justice, said that he would recommend to the party headquarters to apply the Election and Recall Law of Civil Servants (公務人員選舉罷免法) to inner-party elections in future, so that the judicial system can step in to investigate.
He also pledged to help push the enactment of a political party bill which would require all political parties to enforce the Election and Recall Law of Civil Servants in their internal elections.
Ma yesterday also celebrated his 55th birthday at the press conference with senior party members such as former Mainland Affairs Council chairman turned KMT Legislator Su Chi (
Meanwhile, Wang's camp also launched its final election video yesterday.
The video is widely considered to be an attempt to stir up resentment among pan-blue supporters against Ma, who agreed to send in the city police to dispel pan-blue protesters after Lien and his running mate, People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (
However, KMT Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (
"The message we want to get across is that Wang has always been with us at historical and critical moments," she said.
In response, Ma said that it was unfair to cut him out in the video, because he was on Ketagelan Boulevard on March 27, and even delivered a speech and proposed to establish a truth investigation committee to probe the election-eve assassination attempt.
Although he admitted that he had been absent on the day of the election, he said that he had a legitimate reason, because, as city mayor, he did not want to break the law by joining the crowd after the legally-allotted time for the protest had run out.
Meanwhile, Taipei City police yesterday rejected another application by the Wang camp to use Ketagelan Boulevard for a campaign rally tomorrow.
The faction is trying to hold the event either outdoors at Da-An Forest Park (大安森林公園) or indoors at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall (國父紀念館) or a school auditorium.
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