Su wants party leaders to meet

Lin Hsi-yao, minister without portfolio, admitted yesterday President Chen was not told of Su’s plan in advance. Nor was Yu Shyi-kun, chairman of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party.

“We didn’t have to tell somebody what we are going to do before we do it,” said Lin, charged with coordinating the surprise meeting.

He said President Chen “certainly didn’t know” of the meeting. “But,” he added, “he did rightly after the newspaper reported it.”

Media reported the meeting yesterday.

Spokesmen for President Chen refused comment. “We have nothing to say,” said one spokesman, when asked by the press to respond.

Apparently, President Chen has not decided how to cope with Su’s initiative to solve the crisis, one likely prospect being he has to step down or be made a figure head.

Yu, on the other hand, canceled his regular meeting with the premier in the afternoon. He will be asked to participate in the meeting, however.

Mayor of Taipei Ma Ying-jeou, who doubles as chairman of the Kuomintang, said he received the invitation.

“I would meet him,” Ma said.

In fact, their top aides would meet at the Kuomintang Central Office tomorrow to coordinate the multilateral meeting Su proposed.

Ma has reservation about his meeting with other party leaders and Vice President Annette Lu.

“I want to talk with the premier first and then decide to meet other leaders,” Ma told reporters.

One leader, Wang Jin-pyng, said he would.

Wang, president of the Legislative Yuan, equivocated when former President Lee Teng-hui urged him by proxy last week to call such a meeting to help solve Taiwan’s unprecedented political crisis, touched off by Shih Ming-teh’s March of One Million campaign.

If called by Su and Ma would attend,” Wang said, “I am more than willing to take part in such a meeting.”

Shih, a former chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party, is leading a grassroots movement to depose President Chen. The campaign is financed with NT$110 million in contribution from one million people demanding the president resign.

A protest sit-in is still going on at the Presidential Plaza, while the March of One Million is ready to stage a “universal siege” to envelop the Poai district, where the Office of the President is located.

Close to half a million protesters would take part in the siege on October 10 to mar the National Day celebration and shame the president.In a previous “siege of the city,” at least 360,000 people took to the streets to demand the president step down to take responsibility for corruption.

Lawmaker Liao Pen-yen, Taiwan Solidarity Union whip, gathered together a dozen business leaders to meet Wang as he had promised last Friday.

Together with TSU legislators, the business leaders urged the parliament speaker to call a meeting of political leaders to help solve the crisis.

Liao did so by order of President Lee, the spiritual leader of the TSU.

The draft call was turned down. Wang said the premier is calling that meeting, in which he would take.

Cheng Wen-tsan, director-general of the Government Information Office and Cabinet spokesman, said the premier is calling the meeting to come up with a solution to return political stability to Taiwan.

But Cheng said there are no sine qua non for the meeting. “The leaders will simply talk about ways and means to end the current stalemate,” he added.

Whether other party leaders are willing to attend remains to be seen, though Ma seems to favor individual rather than multilateral meetings.

In a statement, the People First Party insisted on President Chen’s resignation as a prerequisite last night. “We welcome the meeting, where the president’s resignation alone is discussed,” the statement pointed out.

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