Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday criticized the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) “mudslinging campaign strategy” and said her lawyers are considering whether to take legal action against the KMT.
She also urged voters to oust the KMT at the ballot box.
Over the past week, the KMT and various members have repeatedly accused Tsai real-estate speculation, with some calling the DPP chairperson and her family “a group of thieves,” even though Tsai and the DPP have provided official land registration records to show that the KMT’s claims are false.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
“I would like to take this opportunity to tell [KMT] Chairperson Eric Chu (朱立倫) that although the KMT is not doing well now, and the election is not looking good for them, a party should still maintain its morals in difficult times, so that it would have another chance to rise again with the public’s support,” Tsai said.
She made the remarks in response to reporters’ requests for a comment on the allegations before she appeared at a rally for New Power Party legislative candidate Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌).
“It is really not good for the KMT if it allows people who are without credibility and questionable themselves to continue to make false allegations,” she said, adding: “Our lawyers are mulling legal action.”
Tsai’s appearance at Huang’s rally in front of the railway station in New Taipei City’s Sijhih District (汐止) came four days after the DPP’s Central Standing Committee passed a motion to support non-DPP candidates who share similar ideologies in constituencies where the party has no nominee.
Speaking to a cheering crowd, Tsai urged voters to cast their ballot for president for her and Huang for legislator. She also called on them punish the KMT for its mudslinging campaign strategy.
“In the 2012 presidential election, the KMT has employed the muddling strategy, though it has won, the people have lost,” Tsai said. “This time, if the KMT is still playing the same trick, let’s make them lose, let’s make them lose thoroughly.”
The KMT has to lose because if all a party can do in a campaign is sling muck, then it is not a party that has the ability to run a nation, she said.
In comparison, the DPP has established a team of hundreds of experts in different fields to develop policy proposals to solve the problems facing Taiwan, Tsai said.
“The DPP is confident, and determined to make changes for Taiwan so that everyone will have a good life and feel that being Taiwanese is something to be proud of,” Tsai said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift