Waving campaign flags and balloons, tens of thousands of people marched yesterday in downtown Taipei to support Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin’s (郝龍斌) re-election bid as the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) made its final campaign push ahead of Saturday’s special municipality elections.
Although organizers played down the political undertones of the rally, defining the event as a “carnival-like march,” the rally was filled with campaign banners and slogans, and featured a full lineup of KMT heavyweights, including President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) and Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), who all came out to stump for Hau on a stage in front of the Presidential Office.
“Election campaigns don’t have to be full of tension. They can be positive, like a carnival ... Mayor Hau’s municipal achievements have impressed me and he has done a better job than me,” said Ma, Hau’s predecessor.
PHOTO: WANG MIN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
The 58-year-old Hau, dressed as a pilot to reflect the theme of the march, titled “Walk For Taipei, Taipei Flies High,” defended his municipal projects, including the Taipei International Flora Expo, and demanded an apology from his opponent, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), and DPP officials for the accusations and criticisms they have directed at the event.
“Some politicians have viciously attacked the event for political purposes. The expo has turned out to be a success and I think expo staff and the participating farmers deserve an apology from them,” he said.
The KMT also used the march to buttress support for taekwondo athlete Yang Shu-chun (楊淑君) after her controversial disqualification from the Asian Games in Guangzhou, China, on Wednesday over allegations that she was using inappropriate footgear.
Standing in front of a banner that read “Fight for justice, we’ve got your back, Yang Shu-chun!” on stage, Ma, Hau and a group of KMT legislators, who dressed as taekwondo athletes, vowed to defend Yang.
The president called on the public to remain rational in their expressions of anger over the incident.
“Our efforts to fight for justice will not stop and we will give Yang an award equivalent to a gold medal and we must overturn the unjust case. However, we don’t want anyone to do anything irrational,” Ma said.
Eric Chu (朱立倫), the KMT’s candidate for Sinbei City (the soon-to-be-renamed Taipei County), also appeared at the rally, vowing to join efforts with Hau and turn the two areas into a joint living area with cooperation in the construction of MRT lines, the dredging of the Tamsui River (淡水河) and other projects.
The march was part of events held to mark the KMT’s 116th anniversary. The KMT used the anniversary to campaign with parties and hold rallies in the greater Taipei area, Taichung City, Kaohsiung City and Tainan City throughout the weekend.
Emphasizing the positive aspects of the march, the KMT decorated the rally route, which began in front of the Taipei City Hall and ended at Ketagalan Boulevard, with giant balloons featuring cartoon characters, airplanes and animals. Clowns and puppets were also there to add to the festive atmosphere.
An estimated 100,000 people joined the rally, Hau’s campaign spokesman Fan Chiang Tai-chi (范姜泰基) said.
Meanwhile, DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), the party’s mayoral candidate for Sinbei City, said that while she respected the KMT’s right to take to the streets, “many people didn’t know whether they should laugh or cry” after it appropriated the controversy over Yang’s disqualification as one of the themes of the rally.
“Basically, it confirms that even the [KMT] doesn’t know what it is marching for,” she said at a campaign stop. “It was a ‘don’t know why, but I’m rallying’ sort of rally ... and for a lack of a better reason, it decided to use the Yang controversy as its cause.”
She said the government should have found more legitimate justification to take to the streets, adding it was regrettable that “a government, which has been in power for [more than two years], cannot find any successful policy as its reason.”
“Instead, they have to go and take advantage of an incident we all feel sad about,” Tsai said.
Joined by DPP legislators, Tsai first held an election event in Sansia Township (三峽) and then moved on to hold a bigger rally in Lujhou (蘆洲) in Taipei County. Organizers estimated the attendance at the second rally, held between 7pm and 10pm, was about 6,000.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY VINCENT Y. CHAO
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