TAIPEI, DEC 25: Taiwan's main opposition party on Monday heaped pressure on President Chen Shui-Bian to step down, staging a 10,000-strong protest march and demanding he take the blame for rising unemployment and slumping share prices.But Chen appeared unscathed by the opposition threats to oust him and attended a buddhist rally in the southern Port city of Kaohsiung, Taiwan's second biggest city.In northern Taipei, protesters wearing head-bands saying `Save Taiwan' and `Dismiss Ah-bian' and waving national flags marched through the capital.``Ah-bian, step down,'' the protesters chanted to the beating of drums, referring to Chen's nickname.Protest leader Chen Chien-Chih, a lawmaker who sits on the Nationalist Party's decision-making Central Standing Committee, smashed bowls, alluding to the Chinese phrase ``smashed rice bowl'', which means ``losing one's job''.``Taiwan's economy has never been worse,'' said Chen Chien-Chih, who is not related to the President. Several private think-tanks have forecast Taiwan's economic growth would lose steam in 2001.``If we don't express our views, he will continue to eat and sleep well,'' he told the crowd, referring to the President's infamous comments that he has little trouble sleeping or eating despite an anaemic stock market.The nationalists, toppled by Chen Shui-Bian in elections in March, have joined forces with the island's second and third biggest opposition parties and submitted a dismissal motion to legislature last week.But the opposition coalition has said it would not try to force Chen from power for now, apparently because recent surveys have shown most people are against sacking the President.Demonstrators set fire to the effigies of chen, vicepresident annette lu and premier chang chun-hsiung near the presidential office building in central taipei before a police officer put out the blaze with an extinguisher.Police set up barbed-wire barricades to keep the protesters, including workers, students, housewives and the elderly, at bay.Impersonating Chen and Lu, demonstrators performed a skit, poking fun at the Vice-President.Worried about their future, a group of university students, wearing white masks and signs saying ``pain'', pulled a cart with effigies of Chen and other government leaders on it - sleeping and eating well.``Once we graduate, we could become jobless,'' said Morganwang, a 21-year-old accounting student and a nationalist stalwart. Taiwan's jobless rate rose to a 14-month high of 3.19 percent in October, according to the latest government figures.
