Greater Tainan Councilor Wang Ding-yu (王定宇) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday tearfully announced he would no longer seek a legislative nomination at the urging of senior party officials.
Looking tired and agitated, the five-term councilor said he would drop the bid in the “DPP’s best interests,” despite winning the primary in the city’s fifth electoral district.
“Local polls have given me a two-to-one lead over the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] candidate. There are many ways I can convince supporters and even myself to continue this battle, but I cannot do this because the 2012 presidential election is more important,” he told a press conference.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
Wang said he had considered the issue for the past three months. In April, he was involved in a charity scandal that he has accused DPP Legislator Lee Chun-yee (李俊毅), the rival he defeated in the primaries, of instigating.
The previous month, Wang took 32.9 percent support in the poll against Lee’s 28.7 percent, widely seen as an upset victory in the wake of a damaging and divisive campaign.
His status as a legislative candidate was first put in doubt last month when a DPP disciplinary committee slapped a six-month probation period on Wang and a two-month period on Lee, saying that their spat during the charity scandal had damaged the party’s reputation.
DPP regulations remain unclear on whether Wang, suspended until November, could have received the official nomination in time for the January elections.
Just days earlier on Saturday, it became apparent that the DPP was looking to find another candidate to fill the void. Mark Chen (陳唐山), a former Tainan county commissioner, said he had been approached by DPP officials to run in the district.
DPP spokesperson Lin Yu-chang (林右昌) yesterday refused to confirm the report, but said a party task force was now looking to choose another nominee for the district.
“Basically, we are back to square one and we are looking at all possibilities,” Lin said.
The move to urge a winner of a party primary to drop his bid was a delicate issue for the DPP as it seeks to consolidate its vote in the district, a pan-green stronghold. Wang holds widespread support among grassroots DPP supporters in the area.
However, DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and other party leaders had grown increasingly worried that any interpretation of party regulations in Wang’s favor could have taken time and led to another wave of controversy.
DPP officials confirmed it was Tsai who personally made the request for Wang to withdraw. The two appeared at a joint press conference, with the DPP presidential candidate praising the Greater Tainan councilor for “looking at the bigger picture.”
“I want to thank Wang ... for making the decision to back down in order to avoid any more intra-party strife. The 2012 elections are very important for the DPP and for Taiwan; we hope we can acquire the maximum support possible in Greater Tainan,” she said.
Tsai’s request and Wang’s standing down are almost sure to have repercussions for the DPP, especially given the wide range of support Wang commands inside and outside the party in the district.
At a broadcast program yesterday evening, former presidential office secretary-general Chen Shih-meng (陳師孟), a Wang ally, lashed out at the party, saying that it could “no longer stand up to its own conscience” and called its decision against Wang “a mistake.”
“The DPP should not have stood against Wang. Instead, the party should have continued to cultivate this talent,” Chen Shih-meng said.
Mark Chen did not returns calls yesterday, but is understood to be considering the idea despite rejecting it outright during an interview with the Central News Agency on Saturday.
He had previously said he was aiming for a spot on the DPP’s legislatures-at-large roster, but a source said that Mark Chen, also a Wang ally, is no longer closed to the idea of running in Greater Tainan’s fifth electoral district given the lack of another better-suited candidate.
Both Chen Shih-meng and Mark Chen have expressed their support for Wang in the charity scandal that saw him accused of personally seeking, illegally, millions of New Taiwan dollars in donations for Typhoon Morakot victims that remain unaccounted for.
However, Wang opened up his books last month, including checkbooks and donation receipts, that he said were proof that more than NT$3.29 million (US$114,100) was spent on disaster relief, greater than the amount originally donated.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
RSS