In spite of the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) perceived readiness for the elections in the nation’s western coast, DPP candidate Lee Chin-yung (李進勇) has described the Yunlin County commissioner’s race as undoubtedly the most heatedly contested of all the Nov. 29 polls.
In a recent interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper), Lee said the intensity of the contest was primarily due to the Yunlin seat being critical to preserving the influence wielded in the county by a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) faction headed by former Yunlin commissioner Chang Jung-wei (張榮味).
Lee’s KMT rival in the race is Chang Li-shan (張麗善), the sister of Chang Jung-wei.
Lee is pushing a “Brighter Yunlin” with a “clean [county] government” as the baseline policies of his campaign, with billboards hung across the county proclaiming slogans such as: “No ‘black gold’” — a reference to a graft case involving Chang Jung-wei, who was forced to step down as commissioner after he was indicted for corruption in 2005.
The “Brighter Yunlin” policy is aimed at having the county government develop ecologically friendly resources and “green” industry that can coexist harmoniously with the environment, Lee said.
In terms of government staff, Lee said he would create a clean administration, which would make the interests of the public, agriculture industry and environment of Yunlin equal and help all parties stand together to strengthen the county.
Turning to agriculture, Lee said it is Yunlin’s principal industry, earning the county NT$60 billion (US$1.9 billion) in revenue last year.
Lee said he planned to uphold the policy of making Yunlin the nation’s “agriculture capital,” as implemented by Yunlin County Commissioner Su Chih-fen (蘇治芬) of the DPP, adding that he hopes to make Yunlin Taiwan’s most important agricultural production base.
On county finances, Lee said he hoped the central government would speedily pass the amendment on laws allowing local governments to incur more debt, adding that he hoped pending amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) would also be passed to make distribution of resources more logical.
However, Lee said that these issues were extremely convoluted, necessitating debate over decades and were ultimately not in the hands of local governments.
Yet he maintained that regardless of how financial distributions issues are resolved, Yunlin still has resources available.
On education, Lee proposed making school textbooks free and providing free milk to elementary school students to help them have a balanced diet.
That policy proposal clashes with Chang Li-shan’s policy initiative, which would make elementary school lunches free.
According to Lee, his education and health plans would cost just NT$10 million annually, adding that if the county government’s finances are well husbanded, that would be an affordable amount.
Lee said that by contrast, Chang Li-shan’s policy of free lunches would cost more than NT$20 million a year and would be classified as a social welfare policy, which regulations stipulate would require identifying the more financially capable families to ensure they do not receive the same benefits.
“The county government should not waste its money, and its limited resources must be used with greater efficiency and placed where needed,” Lee said.
He added that under his governance, the county government would not request the controversial subsidy funds from Formosa Plastic Group’s naphtha cracker on an individual basis.
Local governments should not have to rely on the kindness of businesses, Lee said, adding that the central government should mandate corporate subsidies for the local population, as only then would local governments have more say in the matter, making corporate subsidy programs more fair and logical.
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