Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) yesterday acknowledged that the defeat in Saturday’s Yunlin legislative by-election was a warning for the party, but said the KMT would continue party reform efforts by presenting candidates with integrity and a clean image.
“[Saturday’s result] sends us a warning and we will reflect upon ourselves deeply,” Wu said after voting in the KMT Central Committee election at the party’s Taipei branch.
KMT candidate Chang Ken-hui (張艮輝) lost Saturday’s by-election to his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) rival Liu Chien-kuo (劉建國) by a wide margin, handing a significant victory to the DPP, which prior to the vote held 27 legislative seats, one shy of a quarter of the 113-seat legislature.
Independent candidate Chang Hui-yuan (張輝元), who left the KMT to run in the by-election, split the pan-blue votes by securing 22,747 votes in the by-election.
However, the combined number of votes for Chang Ken-hui and Chang Hui-yuan — 52,045 — was still short of Liu’s 74,272.
Wu said the party had not made a mistake in nominating Chang Ken-hui, a college professor with integrity and experience in local politics, and blamed the defeat on what he called the “special political environment” in Yunlin County.
“We insisted on nominating a candidate with a clean image and the KMT will keep up such reform efforts even though we have to pay a price in the process,” he said.
KMT heavyweights, including Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) blamed the party’s defeat on a pan-blue split and acknowledged that the by-election result had cast a shadow ahead of the local government elections in December.
“The party split, which resulted in dispersal of our strength and disappointed our supporters, is the main reason for the defeat ... The KMT needs to be more united facing the year-end elections,” Wu Den-yih said.
Hau said the result reflected voter disappointment with the poor performance of the government.
“People expressed their opinion with their votes and we should reflect on that,” he said.
The KMT’s defeat on Saturday was seen as a reflection of growing discontent with the government and a show of no confidence in President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
The KMT lost the Miaoli legislative by-election earlier this year. The defeat of former Department of Health minister Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川), Ma’s preferred candidate, in the KMT primary for the Hualien County commissioner election also raised questions about public confidence in the Ma leadership.
The risk of a pan-blue split also threatens the KMT in Taitung, Hualien, Hsinchu and Nantou counties, where the party is having difficulties integrating local factions for the upcoming local government elections.
Ma, who will take over as KMT chairman on Oct. 17, did not comment on the election.
Wu Poh-hsiung brushed off concerns about more defeats in year-end elections and said he would make every effort to negotiate with local factions.
Meanwhile, the DPP legislative caucus, buoyed by Saturday’s win, said it now had enough seats in the legislature to propose a recall of Ma.
However, there was no such plan at the moment, the DPP said.
According to the Constitution, the legislature can propose a presidential recall or request a revision to the Constitution, or ask the president to make a state of the nation address if at least one quarter of the legislature supports the proposal.
After Liu is sworn, the DPP will have 28 of the 113 seats in the legislature, meaning that it would need one additional voice to be able to initiate such proposals.
“To make things work, we need the help of one more legislator from either the KMT or the Non-Partisan Solidarity Union caucus,” DPP caucus whip Wang Sing-nan (王幸男) told the Taipei Times.
“We’ve already found the extra legislator we need — someone from another party has agreed to work with us if we are to make the proposal,” Wang said. “But I can’t tell you who the legislators is at the moment.”
Although the DPP has gathered enough support to submit a presidential recall proposal, Wang said the party would not consider such an option at the moment and would not abuse that power.
“We would only make the proposal if the recession persists, unemployment continues to grow or if the government tries to push for an economic cooperation framework agreement without the consent of or ratification by the legislature,” Wang said.
DPP Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) said that by crossing the proposal threshold, the DPP had gained a powerful bargaining chip that would make it a more effective check and balance on government policies.
In response, the KMT caucus yesterday vowed to block any DPP-initiated proposal to unseat Ma.
KMT caucus secretary-general Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) said the caucus would kill any proposal in the KMT-dominated Procedure Committee.
Meanwhile, former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) said yesterday that the DPP must avoid taking a win in the year-end elections for granted following the party’s win in Yunlin.
Amid allegations of gang connections, vote-buying and factionalism, Lu said Yunlin residents exercised their wisdom and selected the best candidate. The victory was a good omen for the DPP ahead of December’s elections, she said.
Lu made the remarks during a visit to the campaign headquarters of DPP candidates for Changhua County commissioner Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠) and Changhua County councilor Lin Wei-hao (林維浩).
The elections, scheduled for Dec. 5, will be held to select county commissioners, city mayors, county and city councilors and township and village wardens.
Lu praised Wong as someone who stuck to her ideals, adding that she and her husband were the only couple who dared to take her in after she was released from jail in the early 1990s. Lu was sentenced to 12 years in prison by the then- KMT administration on charges of “abetting a violent rebellion” for a 20-minute speech she made on the evening of the Kaohsiung Incident.
The incident, which took place in December 1979, involved a state crackdown on a human rights rally organized by Formosa Magazine, of which Lu was vice president in the 1970s.
Lu said Saturday’s election was necessary because the former Yunlin legislator had been charged with vote buying. She declined, however, to draw a connection between the KMT defeat and Ma’s lackluster performance, saying the legislative by-election was just a local election and that it was important for the DPP to work harder.
The election was held to fill the seat left vacant by the KMT’s Chang Sho-wen (張碩文), who won the seat in January last year, but lost it this year after the High Court found him guilty of taking part in a vote-buying scheme organized by his father, Chang Hui-yuan.
Chang Hui-yuan — who was found guilty of vote buying in the first trial — wanted to run as the KMT candidate in the election, but the party rejected his registration because its “black-gold exclusion clause” prevents party members found guilty of corruption in their first trial from standing for public office.
The fiercely fought by-election saw the three contenders attack and sue each other.
Chang Hui-yuan branded DPP candidate Liu Chien-kuo a “gangster” and accused KMT candidate Chang Ken-hui of buying votes.
Liu sued Chang Hui-yuan for slander.
Chang Sho-wen also filed a defamation lawsuit against Chang Ken-hui, accusing him of making groundless vote-buying allegations.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FLORA WANG
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