Taiwan protesters refuse to disband, demand re-count

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Opposition activists refused to disband protests Monday until authorities agree to re-count votes from Taiwan's weekend presidential election, narrowly won by the incumbent one day after he was lightly wounded in a shooting critics say influenced the vote.\nProtest crowds outside the Presidential Office swelled Monday evening to 10,000 -- the number they reached Sunday -- as people finished work and school. Showing their determination, protesters set up dozens of colorful tents carrying the words "Not going home without a re-count."\nGovernments in the region said they hoped the political turmoil over President Chen Shui-bian's slim re-election victory Saturday would not exacerbate tensions between the island and mainland China.\nChen, who campaigned on a China-bashing platform, won with 50.1 percent of the vote, compared to 49.9 percent for opposition candidate Lien Chan, who has pushed for a more conciliatory approach toward Beijing. The margin was 30,000 votes.\nThe opposition said voting was marred both by Friday's mysterious shooting, which Chen said was an assassination attempt, and by voting irregularities. They say the attack unfairly earned the president sympathy votes he needed to win.\nLien has called for a criminal and medical investigation into the shooting and raised questions about more than 330,000 ballots that allegedly were spoiled.\n"The whole world is concerned over whether Taiwan has had a fair election," Lien's running-mate, James Soong, said early Monday while visiting opposition activists rallying near the presidential office to demand a recount.\nLater Monday, Lien demanded the president meet with him to discuss the fraud allegations "for the sake of stability, democracy and clean politics."\nLien has already petitioned for the election results to be nullified, and it could take months for the courts to decide how to respond. Taiwan's High Court ordered all ballot boxes sealed to preserve evidence, but did not immediately order a re-count. Court chief Chang Chin-hsiung said Monday a ruling would come within six months at the latest.\n"It could come in one or two months after we finish the investigation and have debates about it," Chang said.\nThe election dispute cast a cloud over Taiwan's stock market, which had already stopped trading for the day Friday when Chen was shot. The market's main index plunged 6.7 percent Monday, close to the daily limit of 7 percent.\nAustralian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer urged Chen to act with "a very great degree of moderation" in dealings with China, which wants Taiwan to rejoin the mainland.\n"I think the last thing any of us want in the Asia-Pacific region is an escalation of tension between Taiwan and mainland China," Downer said.\nIn Tokyo, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi called for moves toward stability. "It is important that the confusion there ends quickly," he said.\nChen and Vice President Annette Lu were shot on the eve of the ballot while riding in an open Jeep in Chen's hometown of Tainan, Taiwan. Nobody has been arrested, and police have not identified any suspects. Chen was hit in the abdomen, Lu in the knee.\nTo head off speculation Chen staged the shooting, his office released photographs of his wounds, and prosecutors said tests showed two bullets found at the scene had been fired from a gun and were the ones that injured Chen and Lu.\nIn addition to fighting off fraud allegations, Chen also was damaged by the failure of a two-part referendum Saturday on China because many voters heeded an opposition call to boycott it. Spearheaded by Chen, Taiwan's first island-wide referendum was fiercely opposed by Beijing, which saw it as a rehearsal for a vote on Taiwan independence.\nChina and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949. China wants the island to rejoin the mainland and has threatened military action if it moves toward independence. The referendum asked whether to beef up Taiwan's military defenses against China and whether to seek peace talks with Beijing.