Both Sinbei City mayoral hopefuls yesterday suggested that a near meet-up between their entourages was unsurprising, given that they have both ramped up their election events as part of campaign frenzy four days before Saturday’s elections.
Accompanied by firecrackers and watched by scores of spectators, their motorcades and dozens of supporters came within several city blocks of one another in tightly fought Yonghe (永和), part of Taipei County, which will be renamed Sinbei after its upgrade to a special municipality next month.
Smiling and waving to supporters, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) both stood in open-top jeeps leading motorcades stretching for dozens of meters.
PHOTO: CNA
Rain or shine, they said, they would make a last minute appeal to voters throughout the municipality, the country’s most populous.
Concerns over a clash were avoided after the two campaigns apparently agreed on a roadmap that avoided overlap, an issue that will grow more important as the two candidates are expected to meet again in Banciao (板橋) the day before the elections.
“It was a coincidence and it’s also another coincidence that we will meet again in Banciao. After all, we plan these events one or two weeks in advance,” said Chu, speaking of yesterday’s near miss.
Tsai agreed, adding that both camps likely chose Banciao as the site of their final election rallies on Friday because it is the seat of the county government.
“It’s the political and economic center of Taipei County and it will remain [so] for Sinbei City in the future,” she said.
The near meet-up took place just hours after Chu launched a new volley of criticism against Tsai’s campaign, attacking it for “masterminding an underhanded” letter campaign to sway voters through what he says are false accusations.
His campaign alleged that over the last two weeks, some residents have received documents alleging that Chu halted an old-age subsidy during his eight-year tenure as Taoyuan County commissioner and that he allowed factories to dump polluted water in Taoyuan rivers.
Speaking of the letters, signed by officials at Tsai’s campaign and a number of DPP city councilor candidates, Chu said he hoped Tsai, a former legal professor, “could maintain a scholar’s conscience and refrain from such actions.”
“[Unfortunately], the DPP has a history of using negative [attacks] in the last few days of any election ... I’m sure that it will happen again” before the election, he said, suggesting that Tsai could not prove her campaign’s allegations.
Officials at Tsai’s campaign have said that Chu’s campaign, which has filed a lawsuit over the documents, should respond truthfully to their assertions because their material is clearly sourced and signed. On the charges that Chu halted the old-age subsidy, the document is also signed by two DPP legislators, Kuo Jung-tsung (郭榮宗) and Huang Jen-shu (黃仁杼).
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