A-bian rails on KMT, "curses" again at rally

At a rally in Kaohsiung last night, President Chen Shui-bian responded to allegations KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou made that A-bian and Frank Hsieh had been informed of the Kaohsiung mayoral election verdict before it was released.

Ma's suspicions were based on the A-bian saying, "We'll see the result this afternoon" before the verdict was released. As you can see, that's a great reason to suspect that the judge was in the DPP's pocket.

As has been typical of A-bian in these final days in office, he came out guns blazing. The money quote from the speech (no pun intended), as quoted in the United Daily News today:

「本來就是咱贏，不必讀法律，用膝蓋想也知」，要讓國民黨得到啟示，不能每次輸就「牽拖洨（台語，指精液）牽拖沘（指鼻涕）」。
"We won the election in the first place, something you could figure out thinking with your knee even if you didn't read the law." Hoping to put the KMT on notice, Abian said that the party should not "drag everything out" [by not really admitting defeat] every time they lose.

Now the reason this became a news item is that the phrase for "drag everything out" that A-bian used is a Taiwanese phrase that literally translates as "drag out sperm, drag out snot."

When we saw this on the television news today, My wife's Pingtung family laughed; my wife just said "that's no big deal." She then said the phrase is essentially the same as saying "牽拖東 牽拖西" (to drag things out).

Of course, all of the Taipei people questioned in the news clip talked about how such speech is not appropriate for a head of state -- a feeling I think the South would generally not share. Personally, I just like to see A-bian in all his rhetorical glory, appropriate or not.

You can view A-bian's remarks on video here.

Bonus article of the day on how the new single member districts make the legislative election more like the local borough chief elections.

Blue cities, counties plan to split referendum, legislative ballots

In defiance of the Central Election Commission's recent decision to hand out the two legislative ballots and two referendum (one KMT, one DPP) ballots at the same time, cities and counties run by blue administrations are planning on handing the ballots out separately.

This means you'll have to go to one line, get your legislative ballots (first, of course), go drop them in a box and then get in a new line to repeat the process for your referendums.

I'm livid. What sense does it make for the KMT to make its own referendum as difficult as possible to gather the required voter threshold? How dare they simply ignore the CEC, just as they did the Ministry of Education when it mandated nationally unified text books, just because the KMT isn't the one calling the shots?

This again demonstrates the KMT's deep distrust of democracy and their inability to avoid seriously contradicting themselves.

Sorry for being sloppy

In my flurry of posting yesterday, I managed to make several mistakes (most of which I've tried to correct). I was in a hurry to finish before leaving work because of plans to come to Pingtung this weekend. My bad!

KMT goes into attack mode, shoots self in foot

The KMT, pissed off with Talking Show's consistant attacks on DPP KMT policy, "declared war" on the show. It was yesterday's Wednesday's lead story in the China Times. What did declaring war actually constitute?

It meant "revealing" that the host of the show applied for KMT membership shortly after martial law was lifted. The KMT then went on to ask, if the host is such a pro-Taiwanization (bentu) person, why would he enter the KMT? If he was so democratic, why did he join the KMT instead of joining the DPP or fighting for democracy? Why did he do it join even after he finished his studies (when students were still forced to join the party)?


This is hilarious because the KMT is almost accidently admitting that it is an anti-Taiwanization (bentu), anti-democratic party that forced people to join the party; on the other hand, the official line denies or ignores all of this to this very day.

Referendum situation

The rumor-mongering but sometimes correct China Times has an article tonight saying that the Central Election Commission plans on pushing for it's plan to hand out referendum and election ballots TOGETHER at the legislative election.

Edit: confirmed by CNA. The ballots will be given out at the same time.

Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall

The Education Minister confirmed today that the DPP intends to rip down the words at the front gate of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall. The words are a direct reference to Chiang's honorary name, which imply just how even-handed and righteous Chiang was.

No final decision has been made on what exactly to replace it with.

Wang agrees with Soong: KMT's UN referendum a joke

The head of the KMT at-large legislative list and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) stated today that the KMT's drive for a referendum to return the ROC to the UN was "lying to people" and "lying to get votes," and in his opinion, "It's our relationship with the mainland, stupid!" that is most important.

The statement is a rather surprisingly strong rebuke of the KMT's own referendum plans and shows that even within the party, it's perfectly transparent that the KMT effort is half-hearted and aimed at having their own referendum they can present along side the DPP's in the election with no futher consideration.

Joanna Lei leaves KMT as well

Another would-be legislator of the KMT has bolted the party. Again, hat tip to Raj. Here's the China Post story.

At large lists, district lists coming out

Both the DPP and KMT have their at large lists out, and I'll be updating the map with that information over the weekend. Remember, the PFP is nominating jointly with the KMT, and the TSU seems unsure exactly what they will do.

View Larger Map

Kaohsiung election ruled valid

The night before last years' Kaohsiung mayoral election last year, DPP candidate Chen Chu (陳菊) called a press conference on the night before the election to show video of someone buying votes for the KMT candidate, Huang Chun-ying (黃俊英).

After Chen Chu won, the KMT sued, saying this amounted to a campaign event, and that Chen Chu had violated the election law. The Kaohsiung District Court on June 15 ruled in favor of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) mayoral candidate Huang Chun-ying.

Today, the appeal has turned out in Chen Chu's favor. There should still be one appeal decision left before the case is finally decided.

As Raj pointed out, this was the alst appeal. Case closed.

On the international media's perspective

Inspired (rather indirectly) by recent posts by Bent, The Only Readhead in Taiwan, and Michael Turton, I've made a little chart that I think demonstrates the main reason the international media has such a warped view of the Taiwan situation -- because they still largely see it in terms of the civil war mentality that dominated the international debate and research for decades, as well as US policy. They never really saw things as Taiwan does, from the inside. Here's the chart -- click for enlargement:

I do this to point out there is something more besides "using the China angle" in stories or pro-China bias involved in this problem of Taiwan's portrayal in the international media. It's also a historical problem that essentially requires reeducation (not through forced labor!) to fix.

Election lists update

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is scheduled to finalize the nomination of its legislative candidates tomorrow as the registration process is set to begin on Friday, the party's Culture and Information Department Director Hsieh Hsin-ni (謝欣霓) said yesterday.

The registration for January's legislative elections opens on Friday and closes on
Nov. 21.

Also, hat tip to Raj who notified me of Lee Sen-zong (李顯榮) has left the KMT and is joining the DPP. The DPP is likely to find a place for him to run.

Why I like Ron Paul, too.

The Only Redhead in Taiwan isn't Ron Paul's only fan.

I don't like everything about Paul. I live in Taiwan, which he thinks is a part of China (I'm rabidly oppossed to this position). I'm pro-choice and I don't want to dismantle the Federal Reserve. I sort of like the idea of a gold standard, but more for emotional than rational reasons (one day, I would like to be Secretary of Shiny Things).

But for me, the most important issues in this campaign are:

1) rolling back the Executive authority Bush has claimed, and ending the indefinite detention of citizens / domestic spying / secret CIA prisons / military tribunals / shipping people to be tortured in allied countries. Not to mention restoring habeas corpus.

2) having a rational foreign policy that does not involve spending a trillion dollars a year to maintain an empire that only hurts our national interests.

And for me, a leftist, Paul is the only guy who cares about or talks about those two issues, so I feel I must support him. And when polls indicate 70% of Republican primary voters haven't heard enough about Paul to decide if they like him or not, is the problem really his platform or the lack of exposure?

Here's my favorite video of him.

Clearing up my statements on legislative election

Oh, don't get me wrong. The districts aren't gerrymandered at all. I really admired how well the CEC did when drawing the new districts, and it didn't particularly go the KMT's way -- the drawing of straws that decided difficult districts only went slightly in the KMT's favor.

One problem is that with a legislature cut in half, the relative importance of those small areas that all need at least 1 representitive (offshore islands, Taidong) goes up, and those areas are on the whole blue strongholds.

Another problem is that with the new larger, single member districts, party loyalty becomes a little more important and independents have less of a chance. Given this situation, and using the last legislative election numbers as an indication, the north is a strongly blue, the south is strongly green, and the battle will be in the center of the country.

In the center, about half of the seats seem likely to go blue while the other half are up in the air. Given this situation, if we assume those up in the air seats get split fairly evenly, things just don't look good for the DPP.

Again, let's wait for some more info. Once we actually have all the candidates decided, we can expect some sort of polling (though I'm not sure how comprehensive it will be), and then we can get a better idea of how these districts could go.

KMT unveils list of candidates

From the Taipei Times today:

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) unveiled its legislator-at-large
candidate list yesterday, with Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) topping
the list and the People First Party (PFP) grabbing four of the 34 seats.

Former dean of Chi Mei Medical Center Steve Chan (詹啟賢), now a top aide
to KMT presidential Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), did not appear on the list [KMT said
today he can be number 20] while incumbent legislators accounted for about
90 percent of the 18 seats in the "safe zone," meaning that their election is
likely.

Two of the four PFP legislators who won the KMT nomination were Chang
Hsien-yao (張顯耀) and Cheng Chin-ling (鄭金玲), an anonymous source said.

... If the KMT wins the presidential election, some of the legislators
could be invited to join the government, which would create legislative
opportunities for other individuals, Wu said.

The 18 candidates in the "safe zone" were Wang; KMT Legislator Hung
Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱); KMT Policy Committee convener Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權); KMT
Legislator Pan Wei-kang (潘維剛); KMT Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅); a PFP legislator;
KMT Legislator Chin Chieh (陳杰); KMT Legislator Lee Jih-chu (李紀珠); a PFP
legislator; the National Policy Foundation's Chao Li-yun (趙麗雲); KMT Legislator
Lee Chia-chin (李嘉進); KMT Legislator Liao Wan-ju (廖婉汝); KMT Legislator Chi
Kuo-tung (紀國棟); a PFP legislator; Ten Ren Tea president Mark Li (李明星); KMT
Legislator Kuo Su-chun (郭素春); chairman of the World Hakka Federation Liu
Sheng-liang (劉盛良) and deputy commissioner of the KMT's policy committee Cheng
Li-wen (鄭麗文).

... The party nominated Chiu -- now serving time in jail -- to
honor his "dedication to bring various scandals to light," Wu
said.