SUPPORT:Former president Chen Shui-bian praised Tsai Ing-wen in his latest article, while advising the DPP not to count on a pan-blue split to win in January’s elections
By Chris Wang / Staff Reporter
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday appealed for support from Taiwanese businesspeople abroad, saying their vote and donations were crucial to the party’s victory in the presidential election in January.
While DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has set a modest budget of NT$1 billion (US$32.67 million) for her presidential campaign, it was still a hefty goal to achieve, said Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃), chief financial officer of her campaign, in a meeting with more than 100 overseas Taiwanese businesspeople.
Funding has been one of the party’s biggest disadvantages against the much-richer Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), Yu said, adding that businesspeople had been hesitant to make donations to the DPP for a variety of reasons.
“First of all, the global economic situation is worsening. Second, donors are afraid that the KMT will go after them after the election if the KMT won. Third, they would rather make donations in later stages in the campaign,” he said.
Any donation from overseas Taiwanese is appreciated, Yu said.
Campaign chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said the votes of overseas Taiwanese could play a crucial role in determining the outcome and “any vote counts” since the leading candidates are running neck-and-neck in most polls.
More than 30,000 overseas DPP supporters cast their ballots in the 2004 presidential election, and then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was re-elected by a small margin of about 19,000 votes, Su said.
“This example showed that every vote counts in a highly contested election,” Su said.
Yen Tang-lin (顏當霖), a Taiwanese businessman living in South Africa, said the fund-raising effort for Tsai had been going smoothly in Pretoria, with more than NT$10 million collected from two fund-raisers.
Yen voiced concerns about the impact of Taiwanese businesspeople in China, which at about 1 million easily outnumber Taiwanese businesspeople in other parts of the world. Yen said that China-based businesspeople were more likely to return to Taiwan to vote given the geographical proximity.
“For me, [the election] choice is easy. If you didn’t get the job done, you don’t deserve to be the leader of the country. And Ma has not delivered,” he said.
In related news, Chen advised the DPP to focus on winning an absolute majority to ensure a victory in the January presidential election.
In an article published yesterday, the former president praised Tsai’s performance in the party’s large rally in Greater Taichung on Sept. 24 and her campaign slogan of being “Taiwan’s first female president,” but he also warned Tsai about possible mud-slinging by her opponent — President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Chen said the DPP should not expect to win because of a potential split in the pan-blue camp should People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) join the presidential race. He wrote that Soong’s participation could have the opposite effect and consolidate Ma’s supporters, which is why Tsai should aim higher and do her best to garner more than half of the votes to ensure a victory.
The popular thinking that Soong could jeopardize Ma’s campaign is “unrealistic,” Chen wrote, as evidenced by the Taipei mayoral elections in 1998 and last year, in which a pan-blue camp split did not benefit the DPP candidates.
Chen is serving a 17-and-a-half-year jail sentence for corruption and money laundering.