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Ma did not deliver,
Hakka groups say
PSEUDO-PROMISES? Representatives of Hakka people
said Ma cheated their communities by failing to follow through on any of the
2008 campaign pledges he made
By Chris Wang / Staff Reporter
President Ma Ying-jeou (皑璣) has failed to deliver almost all of his Hakka-related
campaign pledges over his three-and-a-half years in office, representatives from
various Hakka groups told a press conference yesterday.
Ma, who is seeking re-election in January, has said at his presidential campaign
stops that he has carried out all of the pledges he made to Hakka people in his
2008 presidential campaign.
The representatives said otherwise, with Taiwan Hakka Society chairman Chang
Yeh-shen (眎腑此) saying Ma has not delivered any of his nine pledges and has
cheated the Hakka community, making him unqualified for a second term.
According to Yang Chang-cheng (法马), the Democratic Progressive Partyˇs (DPP)
legislative candidate in Miaoli County, Ma has not done anything to deliver on
his campaign promises: He has not established a national Hakka-language radio
station or Hakka culture development areas; he has not recognized the Hakka
language as a public language; he has not promoted Taiwan as a global leader of
Hakka culture; and he has not enacted laws required for such policies.
¨His integrity as a national leader is therefore questionable. He should
apologize to the Hakka people,〃 Yang said.
Ma also failed to double the budget for Hakka affairs in four years as he had
promised to do, former Hsinchu County commissioner Lin Kwang-hua (狶地), a Hakka,
said, adding that this yearˇs budget was listed at NT$3.2 billion (US$10.5
million) a 33 percent increase from the 2008 budget of NT$2.4 billion
allocated under the previous DPP administration.
The Ma administration spent most of its Hakka budget on media promotion,
festivals and activities that were ¨basically ineffective in promoting Hakka
culture,〃 Taipei Hakka Association of Public Affairs chairman Chen Shih-shan
(朝ホ) said.
Wen Ming-chung (放┚), a professor at National Taiwan Normal University, said the
Executive Yuan had scrapped Article 13 of the Hakka Basic Act (產膀セ猭), which
stipulated the establishment of the developmental fund for sectors with Hakka
characteristics.
In other words, Wen said, the Ma administration eliminated a regulation that
would have helped fulfill Maˇs campaign promise.
The press conference was the second time this month the Hakka community slammed
the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for what it called failed Hakka policies.
On Nov. 16, leaders from local Hakka groups slammed former KMT chairman Wu Po-hsiung
(动) for calling DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (讲璣ゅ) a ¨pseudo-Hakka〃
for her lack of Hakka language proficiency and demanded that the KMT apologize
for what they said was its past policy of ¨linguistic genocide.〃
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