Taiwan's President Chen shot during campaigning; presidential
election to go ahead on Saturday
TAIPEI : Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian was shot in the stomach
on Friday during campaigning but is conscious in hospital, a top
presidential aide said.
"We confirm that at 1.45pm the president when campaigning in Tainan
was shot," presidential secretary general Chiou I-jen told a press
conference in Taipei.
He said that Chen was conscious and was being treated in hospital.
The bullet has been found, he said.
Chiou said Saturday's presidential election was due to go ahead as
planned. He said Vice President Annette Lu had also been
injured.
Earlier, a spokesman for Chen's Democratic Progressive Party said
the president and vice president had been hit by a firecracker
during campaigning.
Chen, 53, and Lu were taken to Chi Mei hospital in Tainan.
However a presidential aide, speaking outside the hospital, said
Chen was able to walk into the hospital and was not seriously
hurt.
"There is no big problem. The president is fine, only the vice
president was helped into the hospital. People should calm down,"
said the aide, declining to give his name.
DPP spokesman Cheng Wen-tsan said Chen had been hit in the stomach
with a firecracker.
However DPP lawmaker Wang Sing-nan, who was with Chen at the
hospital, said the president had been shot.
"The bullet hit the ankle of Vice President Annette Lu before
hitting Chen Shui-bian's stomach," said Wang.
Both Chen and opposition challenger Lien Chen on Friday spent doing
last-minute campaigning in the south of the island ahead of
Saturday's presidential election in which the two rivals are
reported to be running neck and neck.
The campaign has been long and spiteful, with much acrimony over
Chen's plans to hold a referendum vote separate from the
presidential poll centred on
relations between the island and mainland China.
The referendum is seen as an attempt by Chen to push the island
further down the road towards independence, something China has
threatened to oppose by military force.
The referendum has been criticised by France, Japan, Germany, the
European Union and, most crucially in a rare rebuke, by its biggest
ally, protector and
arms supplier the United States.
The result of the election - and the two-question referendum that
runs alongside it - is being closely monitored by China, which
still claims the island as part of its territory. - AFP
