PFP Chair James Soong claims there's a conspiracy to stop him...There are forces at work trying to block efforts by People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) to collect enough signatures on a petition to take part in the presidential election, Soong said recently.Soong is still setting up the script for his presidential run later this year. In this one he defies the evil forces of the KMT to set forth on the road to glory. This conspiracy will also help explain why he hasn't collected enough signatures -- "I would have had a million, had it not been for the dastardly KMT! But I'm still running!" Nicely done. It might even be true.... if so, it points to another dynamic driving the election: the KMT's control of local officialdom, an advantage no other party can match.
PFP personnel said Soong’s campaign efforts are being blocked by government officials, while military and educational personnel, as well civil servants, were being encouraged not to help with petition collection work.
Even veterans are being closely watched by local Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chapters, a PFP source said, citing the example of unknown persons taking away petition letters in a veterans’ village in the Banciao District (板橋) of New Taipei City (新北市).
Meanwhile the DPP had an emotional rally in Taipei, with spokesman claiming 80,000 showed up. DPPer Hsiao Bi-khim said on her Facebook that people were throwing money onto the stage, and that small donations have been pouring in.
The President was also active as the campaigns start heating up. This weekend He headed to Hsinchu to work on Hakka votes and then back to Banqiao to stage rallies for the vote in northern Taiwan. As a result of the KMT's divide-and-rule ethnic politics, Taiwan's 4 million+ Hakkas are traditionally major supporters of the KMT. The DPP, however, has been making inroads into this voting bloc with blatant ethnic appeals. The DPP erected colleges of Hakka studies at local universities, a Council of Hakka Affairs, and a Hakka TV station during the Chen Administration. Tsai also just returned from the Hakka areas of Miaoli, Hsinchu, and Taoyuan, promising to make Hakka one of the national languages. Tsai herself is of Hakka descent, from Fangliao in Pingtung.
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8 comments:
Sadly, Tsai still has no vision, only the the island more divided by talking about another national language. What well established country would have multiple national languages? If Tsai can win, that will only mean the wisdom of the island and the people have degraded such that they do not know what leadership is about. It's really a pity that Soong wants to run. He is a really good administrator, but does not have enough vision to be a leader. It take a team of people with different strengths to accomplish goals with a vision. Having said this. Should I run for president some day? Hmm, something to ponder on. Hey, in this global village, if one family planned things out well, maybe single family can have presidents in multiple nations!!!
George
Well, ethnic politics is the hand the KMT dealt everyone forty years ago and now we're stuck with its consequences.
Michael
"What well established country would have multiple national languages?"
Canada and Finland.
-MSK
In a business meeting with a French firm, I asked whether they would communicate with Canadian companies in French, the answer I got was "no, it is too dangerous! Although they speak French, the words can have very different meaning". So can we call that a national language of Canada?
I am curious though, do these two counties actually produce government documents in two languages? This is what a national language should mean. Even Taiwanese had problem with the written aspect of the language. Although they tried to teach it in school, it never got really far.
George
Even though ethnic politics were the hand of the KMT in the past, it hardly justifies that it's the right thing to do in this era. Why would DPP copy the bad things that KMT did? Seems counter intuitive to me.
George
And I forgot to mention Switzerland.
Just because Canadian French is different from French in France, it doesn't mean that Canadian French is not an official language in Canada. That would be like saying that Manadarin is not the national language of Taiwan/Republic of China because most people in Taiwan/ROC do not speak Mandarin like the people in Beijing. And legally, yes French is an official national language of Canada, and many government documents have to be released in both languages. And not just government documents - many services throughout Canada are legally required to be available bilingually (I remember talking to one Quebequois who was said that, when he travelled around British Columbia, many services did not live up to this legal requirement, but the fact that such a requirement even exists on paper I think is strong evidence that French is a national language in Canada).
-MSK
May I clarify that Mandarin is identified as 國語 in Taiwan meaning "National Language".
Whether or not a specific language is a national language or not should be specified by Law.
For example, Singapore uses both English and Chinese, but only one language is identified as the national language (I forgot which).
George
George
Worth pointing out there's a difference between a national and official language. Official means used for government purposes, national is more symbolic, or at most cultural.
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