The Presidential Office yesterday continued to criticize candidates fielded by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for the November special municipality elections while the DPP said, in response, the Presidential Office should spend time addressing more pressing issues than criticizing the opposition party.
In a letter to the editor published in the Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday, Presidential Office Spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) challenged the DPP’s Taipei mayoral candidate, Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), to back up his claim that Taiwan-US relations improved under his watch as premier and criticized DPP Sinbei mayoral candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) for preferring to leave the fate of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) to the public.
Lo said many US officials, including former US president George W. Bush, had criticized former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) cross-strait policy. Noting that Taiwan-US relations have improved since Ma took office in May 2008, in which at one point American Institute in Taiwan Chairman Raymond Burghardt described Taiwan-US relations as “excellent,” Lo asked Su to produce evidence that he improved Taiwan-US relations during his term as premier.
Lo yesterday also described Tsai as irresponsible over recent comments that her party would let the people decide the fate of the ECFA if the DPP were to return to power.
“The deep-green voters back the DPP because they want Tsai to speak on their behalf about ECFA, but now Tsai has thrown the ball back in their court,” Lo said. “It seems what she does is very different from what the DPP supporters have expected.”
In response, DPP spokesperson Lin Yu-chang (林右昌), focusing his attack on Lo, yesterday said: “As a public employee on the government payroll, Lo should be working for the people instead of being engaged in a spitting battle.”
Never before has a spokesperson from the Presidential Office criticized opposition parties or their candidates as much as Lo, Lin said, adding that “Lo probably still thinks he’s the spokesperson for [President] Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) presidential campaign [in 2008].”
“We seldom hear Lo speaking on major national issues, instead all we hear from him are endless tirades against the opposition party,” he said, adding that he believed Lo’s criticism against Tsai did not warrant a response.
Meanwhile, at a separate setting yesterday, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Su locked heads over Taipei’s competitiveness and municipal achievements.
Citing the Washington-based Foreign Policy magazine’s global cities index for this year, Su said Taipei’s ranking slipped from 34th last year to 39th. He blamed the falling ranking on the lack of effort from Hau’s municipal administration.
“The ranking of Taipei City fell from 34th to 39th. Mexico City, on the other hand, was ranked 30th. Apparently Hau Lung-bin does not care about making progress as Taipei mayor,” Su said when meeting with supporters at his campaign headquarters.
Infuriated over Su’s comparison of Taipei with the Mexican capital, Hau yesterday slammed Su for ignoring the rapid development of Taipei City over the years as well as its international competitiveness. Hau argued the city’s economic strength and overall environment had surpassed those of Shanghai, Seoul and other international cities.
“Mr Su’s comments showed his ignorance of municipal developments in Taipei City ... Focusing his election campaign on belittling Taipei City’s performance as inferior to other cities will not help him win support from voters,” Hau said.
Hau cited global financial group Mercer’s quality of living survey for this year as saying that Taipei’s quality of living surpassed Shanghai and Beijing. Taipei City also showed better economic strength and competitiveness than other Asian cities in several other international surveys, he said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY VINCENT Y. CHAO
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