Taipei - Some 500 foreign observers will arrive in Taiwan
to monitor Saturday's presidential election , authorities said
Tuesday.
The observers are invited by the Foreign Ministry and the two
political parties vying in the election. They are mostly foreign
parliamentarians and scholars.
'The Foreign Ministry has invited 280 foreign observers who form
57 observation delegations from 30 countries,' ministry spokeswoman
Phoebe Yeh said.
Former French prime minster Edith Cresson is among those invited.
'The Foreign Ministry will arrange for them to visit the Central
Election Commission, the two political parties involved in the
election, campaign rallies and the vote-counting centre,' she said.
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the largest
opposition party, Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or KMT), have
also invited observations from abroad.
The election will choose a successor to President Chen Shui-bian,
of the pro-independence DPP, who will step down on May 20 after
having served the maximum two terms.
The two candidates are DPP's Frank Hsieh and KMT's Ma Ying-jeou.
According to public opinion polls in recent months, Ma leads Hsieh
by about 20 percentage points, but Hsieh claims his gap with Ma has
narrowed to about five percentage points.
The KMT, made up of former mainlanders, used to seek Taiwan-China
unification but has toned down its policy to advocate peace and
economic integration between Taiwan and China.
Taiwan and China split in 1949 when the KMT government lost the
Chinese Civil War and fled to Taiwan to set up its government in
exile. Despite the opening of cross-Strait exchanges in the late
1980s, Taiwan and China still regard each other as enemies.
Analysts said Ma is more popular because he has pledged immediate
opening of trade and sea and air links with China, which many voters
believe can revive Taiwan's sagging economy.
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