Lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party have begun pushing for a relocation of the Chiang Kai-shek （蔣介石） Memorial Hall in downtown Taipei to facilitate the establishment of a "Taiwan democracy memorial hall" at the same site while seeking to consolidate their voter support as the year-end legislative elections draw near.

DPP Legislator Gao Jyh-peng said he and his colleagues favored the relocation as they claimed it would "deepen Taiwans democracy" while requiring no revision of the existing law. The organic law of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall administration "does not stipulate the exact location of the hall," he said.

Gao, who is seen as a confidant of President Chen Shui-bian （陳水扁）, made the call after the Ministry of National Defense agreed to remove all statues of the late President Chiang Kai-shek from the barracks around the country before February 28, the 60th anniversary of the February 28 Incident.

Gao and his colleagues made a statement claiming that Chiang was the main culprit behind the February 28 Incident in 1947 when government troops crushed a revolt in Taiwan. Thousands of people were killed in the ensuing chaos.

Gao urged the Executive Yuan reach a formal resolution on the relocation as soon as possible. The memorial hall could then be relocated to Taoyuan County in northern Taiwan, the location of the temporary mausoleums of Chiang Kai-shek, who died in 1975, and his son, the late President Chiang Ching-kuo （蔣經國）, who died in 1988, he said.

He said the DPP Central Standing Committee invited Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng （杜正勝） to report at its weekly meeting last Wednesday, in which Tu suggested the change, and Premier Su Tseng-chang （蘇貞昌） said the matter could be studied.

"The Executive Yuan should approve a relocation of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall as soon as possible," Gao urged.

He said that with the upcoming 60th anniversary of the February 28 Incident, the government should form an investigation committee to "get to the bottom of the tragedy" that he said "continues to split society today."

If Chiang Kai-shek is confirmed to have been the perpetrator of the suppression, there is no way the next generation should be educated to pay respects to "the killer," he said.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs also announced last week a plan to change the name of the Chinese Petroleum Corp. to "CPC, Taiwan," and that of the Chinese Shipbuilding Corp. （CSBC） to "CSBC, Taiwan" as part of the DPP administrations policies.

Opposition parties have accused the DPP of "ruling the nation with ideology" in a bid to blot out any and all vestiges of Chinas influence from the country. In the meantime, they said, the DPP would adopt its traditional campaign strategy by escalating tensions between people of different backgrounds in order to win the sympathy from pro-green Taiwanese in the year-end legislative elections and next years presidential race.