The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday pledged to ban all acts of bribery in September’s Central Standing Committee (CSC) election to ensure a clean and fair vote.
KMT Secretary-General Lin Join-sane (林中森), while posting the CSC election bulletin yesterday, said the KMT would follow the regulations on CSC election campaigns and ban all potential forms of bribery, including hosting banquets, trading votes and sending gifts.
“The candidates’ integrity is a top priority in the election. The KMT holds the CSC election every year and we ask all candidates to follow the regulations,” he said at KMT headquarters.
Lin’s insistence that the KMT would eliminate bribery in the CSC election came amid accusations of under-the-table deals and improper tricks in last week’s election for the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) CSC.
DPP CSC member Hung Chih-kun (洪智坤) said that gangsters from the south were trying to influence the election in Taipei.
Lin declined to comment on the DPP’s election, but stressed that the integrity of candidates was highly valued by the KMT and is viewed as a priority in the annual election.
The KMT’s CSC is the highest decisionmaking body of the party and its 32 members meet every Wednesday to approve major policies.
The party tightened its regulations on the CSC election campaign in 2010 in the wake of a string of acts of bribery during the election campaign that year and banned certain campaign traditions used by candidates to solicit support, including hosting banquets and handing out gifts.
The CSC’s role was weakened after President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was elected as party chairman in 2005 and implemented a policy of meeting with party officials to discuss major decisions in a separate weekly meeting.
However, many high-profile KMT members are said to be running in the CSC election this year, including former EasyCard Corp (悠遊卡) chairman Sean Lien (連勝文), son of former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰), and KMT Taipei City Councilor Wu Chih-kang (吳志剛), son of former KMT chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄).
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