Today, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) will create an unprecedented title, honorary chairman, so that current chairman Lien Chan (
Ma, who has consistently called for reforming the KMT and taking action against "black gold," has confused many people by establishing Lien as a kind of "super chairman" -- a move that will only serve to restrict Ma's freedom of action. And why retain Wang as vice chairman after accusing him of corruption? If Ma follows through with his plans, he will simply be entrenching members of the KMT old guard in positions of power within the party, and his mission to reform the party will come to nothing.
Regarding the KMT's ill-gotten party assets, what Ma has proposed is actually little different from current policy. It includes liquidating party assets, laying off party personnel and streamlining the party's bureaucracy. However, we would like to remind Ma that before the ownership of the KMT's party assets is fully clarified, any move to sell the party's possessions would go against the will of the majority of Taiwanese. If Ma panders to the culture of corruption within the KMT, he will simply shoot himself in the foot, and will quickly find that he has created new obstacles on the road to winning the presidency.
Ever since Ma announced his determination to reform the party, and then went on to defeat Wang in a landslide victory, most media outlets have portrayed him as a shoo-in for the 2008 presidential nomination.
Ma's unwavering and confident attitude in this election campaign has been impressive, and has done much to mitigate his reputation for being "wishy-washy." We hope that Ma can maintain this momentum and make good on his promises to reform the party and avoid coming under the influence of the KMT's old guard. If he does, it will just be old wine in new bottles for the KMT, and such hypocritical reforms will not convince Taiwanese voters.
With regard to his expected run at the presidency, just because Ma has won the KMT chairmanship doesn't mean he can rest on his laurels. Next month, elections will be held for the KMT's Central Committee and Central Standing Committee, and this will be the first test for Ma in his new position. If the Ma camp fails to perform well in this round of elections, the new chairman is likely to be left without a solid power base within the party, and his mission to reform the party will be hopelessly compromised.
People are even more concerned about what kind of people the party will put forward for the city mayor and county commissioner elections in Dec. Ma's commitment to party reform will be underlined if the KMT is unable to find some fresh faces that can win the approval of the electorate.
As KMT chairman, Ma will have to personally supervise the deployment of his troops to effectively meet the pan-green challenge. The KMT's performance in the mayoral and county commissioner elections will be a key factor in whether Ma will be able to consolidate his position as supreme leader of the pan-blue camp.
Ma will not be officially sworn in until next month, but even before that, he will face numerous challenges. Later on, he runs the risk of becoming a scapegoat if things go badly in the year-end elections. It is not surprising that some political commentators believe that Ma's election as party chairman is only the beginning of his political troubles. Ma's political future is not as bright as much of the media would like to make it seem.
The muting of the line “I’m from Taiwan” (我台灣來欸), sung in Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), during a performance at the closing ceremony of the World Masters Games in New Taipei City on May 31 has sparked a public outcry. The lyric from the well-known song All Eyes on Me (世界都看見) — originally written and performed by Taiwanese hip-hop group Nine One One (玖壹壹) — was muted twice, while the subtitles on the screen showed an alternate line, “we come here together” (阮作伙來欸), which was not sung. The song, performed at the ceremony by a cheerleading group, was the theme
Secretary of State Marco Rubio raised eyebrows recently when he declared the era of American unipolarity over. He described America’s unrivaled dominance of the international system as an anomaly that was created by the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War. Now, he observed, the United States was returning to a more multipolar world where there are great powers in different parts of the planet. He pointed to China and Russia, as well as “rogue states like Iran and North Korea” as examples of countries the United States must contend with. This all begs the question:
Liberals have wasted no time in pointing to Karol Nawrocki’s lack of qualifications for his new job as president of Poland. He has never previously held political office. He won by the narrowest of margins, with 50.9 percent of the vote. However, Nawrocki possesses the one qualification that many national populists value above all other: a taste for physical strength laced with violence. Nawrocki is a former boxer who still likes to go a few rounds. He is also such an enthusiastic soccer supporter that he reportedly got the logos of his two favorite teams — Chelsea and Lechia Gdansk —
Keelung Mayor George Hsieh (謝國樑) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Tuesday last week apologized over allegations that the former director of the city’s Civil Affairs Department had illegally accessed citizens’ data to assist the KMT in its campaign to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) councilors. Given the public discontent with opposition lawmakers’ disruptive behavior in the legislature, passage of unconstitutional legislation and slashing of the central government’s budget, civic groups have launched a massive campaign to recall KMT lawmakers. The KMT has tried to fight back by initiating campaigns to recall DPP lawmakers, but the petition documents they
RSS