NEW BUDS:Decreasing job opportunities, stagnant wage growth and the income gap are a reality, the president said, explaining why her administration is pushing change

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 28, 2016
By: Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter

The government is not afraid of controversies, as “they could help us face the core of the problems,”

President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday, as she acknowledged that the administration over the past three months has been encountering disputes on various fronts.

Tsai attended a seminar, titled “Direct Election of President and Taiwan’s Democratic Development in the Past 20 Years,” held by the Lee Teng-hui Foundation in Taipei, along with former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝).
Lee, 94, said that although Taiwan in the past faced internal democratic dysfunction and is still under external pressure from China, he is optimistic about the nation’s democracy, which, if its values and rule of law are bolstered, will allow Taiwan to become a sound democracy and a normalized nation.

Speaking after Lee, Tsai said that in 1996 Taiwanese for the first time elected their own national leader.

“The direct election of the president, the milestone of the nation’s democratic development, is not a historical contingency, but the outcome of the joint effort of social and political powers,” she said.     [FULL  STORY]