By Dimitri Bruyas, The China Post news staff
"If you chose the wrong person, you would punish yourself again," said Ma Ying-jeou, while stumping for Justin Chou, the KMT's legislative candidate in the Taipei's Tatung district.
Ma added that electing a new president was not enough to boost the economy because the problem "lies within the government." The Taiwan people are not at fault. It is the government, which for the last seven years failed to solve economic problems, he stressed.
He said that after visiting the south of Taiwan extensively for the last five months, he has experienced first hand the impact of the economic slowdown in the countryside.
"The economy is so sluggish that we can't feel more sorry for local citizens," he said, stressing that if the KMT becomes the ruling party, the economy would be fixed.
"The DPP was not prepared to become the ruling party and lacked experience," he said.
"Nowadays, thieves will snatch anything they can in the countryside, such as electric wires or irrigation material," he added, noting that villages now face the same problems as larger cities in dealing with the soaring crime rate.
"Without a job or a decent income, a person can not be respected," he said, joking that he was also without employment at the moment prior to the election.
Further, Ma also hit out at Frank Hsieh, his opponent from the ruling DPP in the 2008 presidential race, saying that the science-based park established by Hsieh haven't improved "half a step."
Conversely, Ma noted that in the Taipei area, the Nankang and Neihu science-based parks have already reached a production value of more than NT$2.2 trillion and surpassed all science parks established in the country.
He also cited the soaring unemployment in the southern city of Kaohsiung to support his argument.
"How much does Ma Ying-jeou understand of Kaohsiung?" Chao Tien-lin asked rhetorically in response to Ma's remarks. Chao is Frank Hsieh's spokesperson, and was responding as Hsieh left for Japan that morning for a four-day visit, during which he will meet with Japanese politicians and promote the Japanese version of his newly-released book, titled "In Pursuit of Victory in Adversity."
Chao noted that Kaohsiung has improved a lot under Hsieh's leadership, denying that the income of the coffee shop owners by the Love River has been reduced by half because of the sluggish economy.
"Ma Ying-jeou is preaching the decline of Kaohsiung, but the fact is that the KMT was lazy in the past," he said, before noting that "leaders must eventually accept the choice of the public in an election."