Politics

DPP to maintain original campaign strategy: Tsai

Taipei Times
Date: Oct 18, 2015
By: Loa Iok-sin / Staff reporter

Although the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday decided to change

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen yesterdya shakes hands with supporters in Taipei. Tsai said the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) decision to change presidential candidate highlights a conflict between the party’s system and internal integration. Photo: Chen Wei-tsung, Taipei Times

its presidential candidate, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said her party has taken every variable into consideration and plans to continue to follow its original strategy.

“The DPP has shown solidarity, and everyone on the team has the same objective,” Tsai said in response to media queries.

“All of the party’s talent are in their respective positions, and we plan to put out our full efforts into the last 90-odd days left [in the election campaign] for our best performance,” she added.

Asked about the KMT’s possible plan to place Legislative Speaker Wang Jing-pyng (王金平) in first place on its at-large legislator list, Tsai said that the DPP considered the possibility of such events at the beginning of its campaign and carefully planned its strategy accordingly. [FULL STORY]

KMT congress drops Hung

812 delegates out of 891 vote against Hung

Taiwan News
Date: 2015-10-17
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The special Kuomintang congress on Saturday

812 delegates out of 891 vote against Hung. Central News Agency

agreed by 812 out of 891 votes to revoke Legislative Vice Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu’s presidential candidacy after an hour of debate by party delegates.

The next phase is a meeting by the Central Standing Committee to present a new candidate, who is virtually certain to be party chairman Eric Liluan Chu. The new candidate has to be ratified again by the full congress, which should happen before 5 p.m., reports said.

Hung, who was nominated at a similar congress on July 19, fared poorly in opinion polls, leading KMT leaders to believe that the party would not only lose the January 16 presidential election, but also the legislative elections scheduled for the same day. [FULL STORY]

Presidential Election: Huge majority in favor of Hung’s removal

Taipei Times
Date: Oct 18, 2015
By: Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter

Against a backdrop of chants from supporters of Deputy Legislative Speaker

Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu addresses the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) extempore congress at National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Taipei 2yesterday. Photo: NA

Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) outside, the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) extempore congress yesterday voted by a wide margin in favor of a motion to rescind Hung’s nomination as the party’s presidential candidate.

The motion was passed by a landslide vote of 812 to 79 at the congress at the National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Taipei in the afternoon, putting an end to Hung’s candidacy, which had been dogged by rumors about the KMT leadership’s plan to replace her since the beginning.

Among the supporters of the motion were President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), as well as former KMT chairmen Lien Chan (連戰) and Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄). [FULL STORY]

Chu vague on mayoral job

Taiwan News
Date: 2015-10-16
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Kuomintang Chairman Eric Liluan Chu said Friday he would wait until after this weekend’s congress to comment on whether he might remain mayor of New Taipei City if he ran for president.

Saturday’s special KMT congress is widely expected to replace Legislative Vice Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu with Chu as its candidate for the January 16 election.

Chu has been slammed by critics for apparently wanting to combine the positions of mayor of Taiwan’s most populated city, chairman of the ruling party and presidential candidate.

Responding to questions from journalists Friday, Chu said he first had to see what the October 17 Congress decided before announcing details in a report after the meeting. [FULL STORY]

Free Taiwan Party seeking candidates for legislative elections

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/10/16
By: J.H. Chang and Lillian Lin

Tainan. Oct. 16 (CNA) The newly formed Free Taiwan Party (FTP), which advocates Taiwan independence, is inviting people who share the party’s political ideals to join it and run for seats in the January 2016 legislative elections.

A new political party needs to nominate candidates in at least 10 of the 73 electoral districts in order to qualify to run for seats in the Legislative Yuan, and the FTP is hoping that if it can qualify to run, it could win 5 percent of the votes and win one of the 34 party-list seats, according to FTP Chairman Tsay Ting-kuei.

Opening the first FTP campaign office in Tainan, the civil engineering professor and political activist said that by representing the FTP in the Jan. 16 elections, politicians interested in public office can build up their images with more public exposure. [FULL STORY]

DPP slams claims of pressuring unions

CARROT AND STICK:Two major confederations of trade unions denied a report alleging the DPP had offered incentives or threatened them to ensure their support

Taipei Times
Date: Oct 17, 2015
By: Alison Hsiao and Abraham Gerber / Staff reporters

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday slammed a trade union

Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen, second left, visits Keelung yesterday to canvass for votes. Photo: CNA

boss and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Central Committee member for alleging that the DPP had been using “treats or threats” to lure or pressure state-run enterprises’ bosses and labor unions to support the party.

The Chinese-language China Times published a report yesterday claiming that top public enterprises officials and labor unions were moving to support the DPP — which is widely expected to return to power in next year’s elections — by offering benefits or threatening to “clip the wings” of uncooperative unions.

Taiwan Petroleum Workers’ Union chairman Chuang Chueh-an (莊爵安) was quoted in the story as saying that the DPP had been using the “carrot-and-stick” approach to entice state-run enterprises and unions. The story did not mention that Chuang is also a member of the KMT’s Central [FULL STORY]

Eric Chu likened to former ‘emperor’

HUNDRED-DAY BARRIER?:Political science professor Chang Ya-chung said that the KMT chairman would remain as a ‘modern day emperor’ until the Jan. 16 vote

Taipei Times
Date: Oct 16, 2015
By: Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter

A policy adviser to soon-to-be-ousted Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu speaks during a KMT Central Standing Committee meeting in Taipei on Wednesday. Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times

presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) yesterday compared her likely replacement, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), to former Republic of China (ROC) president and short-lived, self-proclaimed emperor Yuan Shikai (袁世凱).

“On Aug.14, 1915, six supporters of Yuan, notably monarchist Yang Du (楊度), established a political group called the Chouanhui (籌安會),” National Taiwan University political science professor Chang Ya-chung (張亞中) said in an editorial published in the Chinese-language China Times.

Chang said the group issued a statement saying that the survival of the nation was closely intertwined with the lives of Chinese and that they could not sit back and let the nation head toward destruction. [FULL STORY]

CEC: mayoral by-election could cost additional NT$160 million

Taiwan News
Date: 2015-10-14
By: Ko Lin, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

The Central Election Commission (CEC) would need to spend an additional

Mayoral by-election could cost NT$160 million. Central News Agency

NT$160 million (US$5.34 million) on a mayoral by-election should Kuomintang Chairman Eric Chu decide to quit his position as New Taipei mayor to run for the presidency next January, reports said Wednesday.

The CEC also pointed out that even if Chu loses his run on January 16, he has the liberty to bid for another stint as mayor, a situation which the commission calls for an amendment to the Constitution to resolve that loophole.

During a question-and-answer session at the Legislative Yuan in the morning, CEC Chairman Liu Yi-chou told Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chuang Ruei-hsiung that it would need two months to prepare a mayoral by-election should Chu leave his post as mayor. [FULL STORY]

How China Might Score Points In The Elections Of ‘Renegade Province’ Taiwan

Forbes
Date: Oct 12, 2015
By: Ralph Jennings ,

Support for Taiwan’s ruling Nationalist Party fell last year as the president

How China Might Score Points In The Elections Of 'Renegade Province' Taiwan

Eric Chu, the chairman of Taiwan’s ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party, shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a visit to the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 4, 2015. Xi held talks with the visiting leader of Taiwan’s ruling party, state media reported, the first such meeting for seven years. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)

got too close to China for comfort. China claims sovereignty over Taiwan, which has been self-ruled for decades and described as a renegade province. In July the same party nominated for the Jan. 16 presidential race a candidate who’s really into China. On Saturday they’re likely to replace that nominee, veteran legislator Hung Hsiu-chu, because she lags the main opposition party’s candidate by around 20 percentage points in opinion polls. The sudden rethink hardly helps the Nationalists look any better among voters who respect political camps who have it together.

The Nationalists still have a chance to win something in January, however, and here’s how. [FULL STORY]

Replacing Hung Hsiu-chu could backfire for KMT

Want China Times
Date: 2015-10-13
By: Wang Kun-yi and Staff Reporter

The reports circulating since last week that Taiwan’s ruling Kuomintang is

Hung Hsiu-chu attends the ROC National Day ceremony in Taipei, Oct. 10. (File photo/Liu Tsung-lung)

moving to replace its presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu appear to be accurate. Hung’s previous determination to stay the distance seems to have folded and the KMT is expected to name its chair Eric Chu as its replacement nomination to boost its sagging campaign at a special party congress on Oct. 17.

It is doubtful whether the strategy will turn the party’s dire situation around before January’s presidential and legislative elections, however.

Since the KMT’s drubbing in the local elections last November, morale has been low and the party’s senior — for which read, male — figures showed themselves unwilling to step forward to run in what looked like a losing battle to retain the presidency. Hung, previously a fringe figure despite holding the deputy speakership of the legislature, was the almost the only person to put themself forward for the nomination and was officially selected as the KMT candidate in accordance with procedures, to the surprise of many.

As Hung would be running against Tsai Ing-wen of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, international media were quick to celebrate the prospect of two women contesting the presidential election, viewing it as a mark of progressiveness that Taiwan would be guaranteed to see its first female head of state inaugurated next year. But cynics viewing a perceived culture of male chauvinism within the KMT speculated that Hung’s nomination came in part because none of the party’s heavyweights were willing to face the likely possibility of losing the presidential race to a woman. [FULL STORY]

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