Islandwide dash to win voters in pre-poll flurry

Nearly all candidates started the day early, going to Buddhist and Taoist temples, marketplaces and busy commercial districts to shake hands with voters.

Streets in major cities around the island were decked with campaign banners, flags and billboards. Sound trucks drove through main streets blaring out music and campaign speeches.

In Taipei, opposition Kuomintang (KMT) Legislator Apollo Chen, who is running for re-election in the city’s south precinct, said at a news conference that one of his supporters in Wanhua district had received an official campaign bulletin on which no serial numbers of more than half of the candidates were printed.

Chen demanded that the Taipei City Election Commission recall all of the flawed campaign gazettes and replace them with corrected ones.

Municipal election officials apologized for the mistake. They said as the contracted printing company was required to print more than 4 million copies of campaign bulletin in three days, it was likely that the company committed certain flaws.

As additional copies were available, the officials said, city residents who received flawed campaign gazettes can approach the offices of their neighborhood chiefs (also known as lichang in Chinese) for replacements.

Also in Taipei, independent legislative candidates Shih Ming-teh and Sisy Chen began to canvass votes on the streets early in yesterday morning.

The pair first showed up at the mass rapid transit system’s Nanking E. Road station to shake hands with commuters. As both of them enjoy high popularity, they received an enthusiastic welcome from commuters.

Shih, an incumbent legislator who is seeking a third term in the Taipei north precinct, and Chen, a popular TV talk show host, jointly organized a concert at Ta-an city park Tuesday night with an aim to “mount a different kind of campaign.”

Both Shih and Chen are founding members of the Shanmeng political alliance. They vowed to stick to clean and high-quality electioneering free of any smear campaign gimmicks.

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Meanwhile, two KMT legislative candidates — incumbent Legislator Chen Horng-chi and Taipei City Councilor Chen Hsueh-fen — prayed at a temple in downtown Taipei for blessings in the heated contest.

They also took the occasion to clarify rumors that they may defect tko the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) after the upcoming polls. They reaffirmed their commitment to remaining in the KMT ranks to push for party reform and cooperation with the DPP to maintain domestic political stability.

Defying many other KMT members’ views that the party should cooperate with its two splinter groups — the People First Party and the New Party in the wake of the December elections — the pair have promoted a KMT-DPP alliance after the polls, which is expected to redraw the island’s political map.

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