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government. At the end of the month, DPP Chairman, Hsu Hsin-liang, announced his resignation, which he had promised to do if the DPP won fewer than 11 seats. He attributed the DPP's failure to win 11 posts to the KMT's vote-buying tactics. Central Standing Committee member, Shih Ming-teh, will be acting Chairman until a new chairman is elected next year. Shih is one of Taiwan's best-known dissidents and was known as "Taiwan's Mandela" for spending 25 years in jail on sedition charges relating to his anti-reunification stand. He was released in 1990.
3.
The Chinese New Party (CNP) and the Chinese Social Democratic Party (CSDP) announced their intention to merge on 15 November. CNP will be retained as the name of the party and a new charter will be drawn up on the basis of the parties' existing constitutions. The CSDP, a splinter group of the DPP, was founded in 1991 by Ju Gau-jeng. Both parties consist mainly of second generation mainlanders and support the eventual unification of Taiwan and China. The CSDP has never shown any signs of making an electoral breakthrough, so the merger offers some hope of political progress. Ju Gau-jeng said it was a good time for the parties to merge because the KMT and DPP would be embittered by factional fighting after the local elections.
4.
Defence Minister Sun Chen said on 8 November that President Lee had approved punishments for twenty-three military officials who had been involved in an arms scandal. The officials include Admiral Yeh Chang-tung, former vice-chief of staff and current president of the Armed Forces University, and General Lin Wen-li, former vice-commander-in-chief of the air force. Yeh Chang-tung reportedly signed a contract with the US plane-maker Grumman for 20 overpriced S-2T planes. The punishments will not be announced until the Control Yuan has completed its investigations. In August, the Control Yuan impeached three senior military officials for abusing power for their own interests.
5. On November 14, the DPP's National United Television station (NUTV) announced that it would start broadcasting on November 15. DPP Legislator and former Secretary-General, Chang Chun-hong, said the aim was to break government control of electronic media. The following day, Jason C Hu, Director-General of Taiwan's Government Information Office, said the government would take action against the DPP's new unlicensed station. Between 15 and 26 November, NUTV experimented with one-hour nightly broadcasts from mobile vans. The government confiscated their headquarters equipment and tried to jam the mobile transmissions. In response, Chang Chun-hong threatened to jam government broadcasts if NUTV is not allowed to broadcast unhindered next year.
6. A Taiwanese fisherman was executed in Kaohsiung for smuggling drugs from China. This was the first execution of a drug smuggler in Taiwan for thirteen years.
Relations with the Mainland
7.
Relations with China were overshadowed by the three hijackings which took place in quick succession on 5, 8 and 12 November. After the third incident, Premier Lien Chan ordered
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