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Group pans Ma for
dodging questions
GOOD READ: The I Want a Good President Alliance
hopes to consolidate responses from the presidential candidates to make a guide
voters can refer to on election day
By Loa Iok-sin / Staff Reporter
Speaking at a press conference
yesterday, Chen Fang-yu, center, a member of the I Want a Good President
Alliance, criticizes President Ma Ying-jeou for not responding to questions from
the alliance, before adding that Democratic Progressive Party presidential
candidate Tsai Ing-wen’s responses lacked sufficient detail.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
The I Want a Good President Alliance
yesterday criticized President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) for failing to respond to any
of its policy questions, which have been posed to the three presidential
candidates, and questioned whether Ma really cared about being a good president.
Over the past few months, the alliance, which was formed by several civic groups
concerned about issues such as education, unemployment, tax reform and labor
rights, has raised questions about different social issues with the aim of
providing voters with a reference guide to the candidates’ policies and
ideology.
The alliance delivered its questions to Ma, who is running for re-election on
the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) ticket, Democratic Progressive Party
presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), and People First Party Chairman James
Soong (宋楚瑜), who was the last to join the race for the Jan. 14 election.
However, alliance members are not happy that Ma and Soong had not responded to
any of their questions and specifically condemned Ma because he is the
incumbent.
“The Presidential Office took our questions and said it would pass them on to
the KMT for further review, but we never heard anything back,” alliance
spokesperson Chien Hsi-chieh said. “I wonder if Ma cares about being a good
president, as he has promised.”
The alliance said Tsai answered each of the questions, though members were not
fully satisfied with her responses.
For instance, regarding unemployment, alliance member Tsai Ya-ting (蔡雅婷) said
the solutions proposed by Tsai Ing-wen were mostly about making changes that
would have an impact on workers, without talking about how to make changes to
the system.
“I think she’s a bit too favorable to businesses,” Tsai Ya-ting said.
Regarding childcare, Pan Hsin-jung (潘欣榮) praised Tsai Ing-wen for wanting to
create government-run daycare centers, “but she did not specify how her ideas
would be implemented.”
The alliance said they would continue to contact Ma and Soong, and hoped to
receive their responses by next Monday.
“We hope to gather all their responses and continue to follow up with what they
do and say during the presidential campaign,” alliance member Chen Fang-yu (陳方隅)
said. “We will then publish a voters’ handbook a week before the election so
that voters can learn what each candidate thinks about different social issues,
and take it as a reference when they cast their votes.”
“Politicians should know that voters will actually judge them by what they say,
what they do and what they think about different social issues,” Chen said.
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