Are we citing the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections again here? Any stories you can dig up regarding the aftermath of those 2 elections only proves that no party or its supporters likes being cheated out of an election either through election fraud and/or manipulation by the current president by illegally releasing fake opinion polls within 10 days of the election as Lee Tung-Hui did in 2000 as KMT chairman.
To put violence into perspective in Taiwan’s elections, there was a well-known election that a Dangwai candidate (Kuo) who was widely believed to have been cheated (ballot fraud) by the KMT and his supporters wanted to break some things and charge into the Central Election Commission where the ballots were held. Democracy activists back then looking from the outside in were sometimes disappointed when Kuo chose not to get violent and instead told his supporters to calm down. He accepted getting cheated out of the election.
Several years later, with Lee having manipulated and cheated the DPP into power with a big smile on his face, the DPP utilizes the entire government structure to commit election fraud in 2004 and succeeds at using its administrative control to force a win by 29,000 ballots by rigging votes right in front of people at times, and some of these same “democracy activists” are critical of the protestors or rioters in front of the presidential office asking for an immediate recount by the Chen administration after reports of election fraud came in from all over the island.
At times Soong talked about charging the presidential office and he did not. A lot of people in the blue camp wanted to do it, but the U.S. came in and used delaying measures by tricking the KMT-PFP camp into waiting until May to recount the ballots where the crowds had already been dispersed by Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-Jeou who also cancelled the large Pan Blue rally on March 19 in the name of keeping the peace. Yes, Ma and his people wanted Lien-Soong to lose so they could run in 2008. When the ballots were recounted just before the inauguration, the voter lists were finally made available and the fraud was clear to see by the lawyers and party staff and started to leak out to the media. But so what? The public couldn’t see them and the judiciary manipulated the pan blue lawyers into not releasing any more information to the media. This was a trick to protect the legitimacy of the CSB administration. Months later with Chen comfortably settled in the Presidential Office and Dr. Henry Lee’s report that said he actually did get shot in hand, the judges threw out the lawsuit case.
This is what I call winning in the opening, middle game, and endgame. Chen had the power, the guts, the smarts, and a great staff to help him pull it off and keep himself out of jail for at least another 4 years. Worked out great for Ma in '08 also.
But to address your post, the 2000 and 2004 election aftermath is just a group of people getting very angry and frustrated over getting cheated in various ways by Lee Tung-Hui and Chen Shui-Bian in '00 and '04 respectively. Those elections do not suggest that the KMT believes that only they have the right to control the ROC government.
[quote=“Charlie Jack”][quote=“Muzha Man”][quote=“Charlie Jack”][quote]Tens of thousands of protesters poured into the streets last night to join a symbolic “siege” of the Presidential Office as part of the anti-President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) movement aimed at ousting him.[/quote]Taipei Times,
September 16, 2006
[quote]Yu Chang Biologics Co was registered and established on
Sept. 5, 2007
, with Tsai as its chairperson. . . .[/quote]–Yesterday’s Taipei Times
If they want to beat the Kuomintang, they’re going to have to get smarter.[/quote]
What?[/quote]
I said, if they want to beat the Kuomintang, they’re going to have to get smarter.
In the Kuomintang’s view, it, and no one else, is the rightful owner of power here. In evidence of that, when they lose we see barely contained fury, punctuated by occasional episodes of incontinence:
But why should they engage in such counterproductive behavior when it seems the DPP can be counted on to provide them with a more acceptable approach?
The Red Shirt movement and all the hooraw connected with it should have been fresh in Tsai’s memory. She should have at least suspected they might be waiting for her.
I think the DPP is still weakened from the brutal beating it got in 2008. And regardless of what the opinion polls say (and who knows what they’ll say after this news), the KMT has a well-rooted patronage or patronage-like system in place that’s very helpful in winning elections. If the DPP wants to have any hope of winning, really winning, so that it can actually assume full policy-making power, it’s got to avoid doing anything that the KMT can substantially capitalize on.
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