Seems like Government ministers
just can't help themselves from falling into automatic campaign mode. Apparently the Agriculture Minister was ilegally stumping for Taichung Mayor Hu and almost threatened to withdraw funding if Hu didn't win. It took a timely interruption from Hu to prevent a huge blunder. Nevertheless, damage done. Its not like funds haven't been withdrawn before as a way to castrate a DPP administration and set the public, and local factions, against it - see 2004 to 2008 when the national budget failed to be passed for the first time and almost every government department had its budget cut by the legislature as a way to punish President Chen for the audacity to try and push through his manifesto pledges following his legitimate and popularly decided direct election. For eight years, funding dried up as the KMT refused to send money down the line to local governments whilst in turn inciting them to blame the DPP led central government. I remember clearly as soon as Ma won in 2008, Taichung exploded with construction activity and it has been going strong ever since. Suddenly a lot of money was made available for all sorts of projects that had previously been stalled for a long time.
