Not to be outdone by the high-profile "228 Hand-in-Hand Rally" to be staged this afternoon, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-People First Party (PFP) alliance will try to grab its share of the media limelight by carrying out activities of its own.
The pan-blue camp's "Heart-to-Heart Rally" will convey its call for ethnic harmony through a blood donation campaign, among other events today.
It will compete for attention with the pan-green camp's 500km-long human chain, to be formed by more than 1 million participants hand-in-hand along the nation's north-south provincial highways, which will demand peace and express defiance toward the nearly 500 Chinese missiles aimed at Taiwan.
"Feb. 28 is a day full of sad sentiment," KMT spokesman Justin Chou (
"To mark the day, the KMT-PFP alliance has chosen to pull up its sleeves and donate blood as its way of expressing its efforts and expectations for ethnic harmony,"Chou said at a press conference held at the alliance's national headquarters yesterday.
A station for donating blood will be set up this afternoon at Kaohsiung's Chungcheng Stadium.
The alliance's presidential candidate, KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
"Through the donation of blood, it is our wish to demonstrate that we are all one family and that there will be no more pigeon-holing of people who are Hoklo, Hakka, Mainlander or Aboriginal," Chou said.
The pan-blue camp's "Heart-to-Heart Rally" includes a 2,000km-long torch relay which started 14 days ago and which has passed through 319 cities, townships and villages.
The final leg will reach Taipei tonight, finishing at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial. It will be led in its final stage by Lien and People First Party chairman and vice presidential candidate James Soong (
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