Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) expressed her utter annoyance over widespread rumors that the higher echelons of the party have been secretly plotting to drop its presidential candidate, Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), and nominate someone else with a greater chance of preventing the party from handing over power to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
In an indignant tone, Lo dared who she called “politically motivated rumormongers” to stop hiding in the shadows and come forward.
However, the self-proclaimed truth teller might have barked up the wrong tree. The enemies might not be so far away as she might think.
Even before Hung was officially nominated, her bid had been dogged by rumors that she had been considering withdrawing from the primary process and that party headquarters had been sounding out KMT heavyweights over their inclination to run for the presidency.
However, Hung’s official nomination and her increasing determination to turn something that ostensibly started off as a tactic to prod other presidential hopefuls within the party to join the race has become a once-in-a-lifetime chance for her to climb the political ladder to the top and changed the game.
It created nervousness among senior KMT members who have been pretending to be disinterested in the top office only because they are too craven to shoulder blame for the KMT’s foreseeable defeat in next year’s election.
They started worrying whether their cowardice would put their dreams of seizing power on hold permanently, or for so long that they would either be thrown off their game or forced out of the spotlight by rising stars in the political arena.
As a result, rumors began circulating that people high up in the ruling party would replace Hung with a senior party member. The first name that emerged was that of Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), who had been intriguingly ambiguous about his interest in competing in the party’s primary.
Then it switched to Vice President Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) before KMT Chairman Eric Chu’s (朱立倫) name also popped up. It is as if those secretly wishing that they were the presidential candidate are eager to test the waters to see what their chances are of pushing Hung out and beating the consistent frontrunner in the race, DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
The rumormongers, whoever they are, also seem to be sending out a message that Hung is far from the KMT’s most-favored candidate; that she is selfishly clinging to her candidacy even when she has been repeatedly placed last in polls; and that her insistence on running could be tantamount to handing the presidency and the KMT’s legislative majority on a silver platter to the DPP.
Probably being too afraid to jeopardize the already slim chance of a united KMT, Hung did not counter her real enemies. Instead, she took two political commentators to court for spreading what she called “unfounded rumors” on political talk shows aimed at impeding her chances of being elected on Jan. 16, despite their assertions that the remarks were based on “credible information” from within the KMT.
With the walls closing in on her, maybe the only way for Hung to come out of the battle in one piece is to confront the real culprits responsible for the rumors, telling them that they need to either compete for the candidacy fair and square or forever remain silent.
However, even if they do enter the race, the odds might still be against them. A poll released by the Cross-Strait Policy Association showed that the KMT is so deep in the gutter that not even a change of candidate would boost its campaign momentum.
Besides, cowardice and political calculation are not really the characteristics voters want to see in a potential head of state.
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