The Cabinet will be reshuffled after today's elections, Premier Frank Hsieh (
"It is just a matter of how many Cabinet members will be replaced by new faces," Hsieh said.
The premier made the remarks after he was approached by reporters yesterday morning while on a two-day trip to Makung city (
Hsieh also admitted to reporters that his relationship with President Chen Shui-bian (
Chen first won the Taipei mayoral election in 1994. At the time, Chen and Hsieh were in direct competition for the DPP nomination. After DPP members decided to nominate Chen, Hsieh then became Chen's chief of staff at his campaign headquarters.
Four years later, Chen campaigned for re-election against current Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), but he lost. However, during the same round of elections, Hsieh won his first mayoral term in Kaohsiung.
"We were competing with each other before [Chen] became the president. Maybe it is difficult for non-DPP people to understand the relationship but that is how it was," Hsieh said.
The premier made the remarks in reference to comments the president made during a TV interview on Thursday night. Chen said that Hsieh and he have always been good partners within the DPP, but their relationship was tense for a while.
"It was no secret," he said.
After Chen became Taipei mayor and Hsieh became Kaohsiung mayor in turn, a rumor circulated that Hsieh and Chen had tried to ask personal favors of each other and ask that government positions be given to their favorite staff members from the Taipei and Kaohsiung city governments. Both Chen and Hsieh said that this is impossible.
"Hsieh was a winner in Kaohsiung at the same time that I lost in Taipei. It was the end of my world but the beginning of his. How could I dare ask for any personal favors from him when I had lost the election?" Chen said during the interview.
"Although we are partners within the DPP, we still have our own dignity and self-respect. How could we ask personal favors of one another?" Hsieh said yesterday.
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