Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) yesterday apologized to supporters for the “disturbance” that the KMT’s Central Standing Committee meeting last week has caused over a change made to the party’s chairperson election date.
In yesterday’s committee meeting, which was open to the media, there were no angry exchanges among party heavyweights and committee members as there had been in the past week, with many accusing the chairwoman of violating party regulations for her own ends.
On Wednesday last week, Hung reportedly railroaded a motion to move forward next year’s chairperson election by two months by arbitrarily interpreting the definition of a meeting quorum, when more than 20 committee members allegedly boycotted the meeting.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
The move has since sparked harsh criticism within the party, with committee member Yao Chiang-lin (姚江臨) filing a civil suit and KMT caucus convener Sufin Siluko (廖國棟) urging Hung to step down.
Hung yesterday said that as the party is facing multiple challenges, “there is no tomorrow if new breakthroughs cannot be made.”
“Solidarity and reform” is not paying lip service and only sincere communication to reach a consensus would be good for the party,” Hung said.
“There can be different views,” she said, calling on the committee members to attend the meeting to avoid misunderstandings.
A reconsideration was proposed in yesterday’s committee meeting for the motion passed on Wednesday last week, and while those who were against the motion, including Sufin and Yao, did not comment, they kept their hands down when others clapped their hands to celebrate the passage of the reconsideration.
Yao had said that he would withdraw the lawsuit if a consensus was reached yesterday, while Sufin denied that there was antagonism between he and Hung.
It was also announced in the meeting that the date for the party’s election of representatives and chairperson would remain unchanged — May 20 — but the planned merger of the party’s deep-blue Huang Fu-hsing (黃復興) military veterans’ branch with the party representative election of general local party chapters was postponed until 2021.
The total number of representatives for next year’s elections will be recalculated with more seats expected to be granted to the Huang Fu-hsing branch, KMT Secretary-General Mo Tien-hu (莫天虎) said.
Before yesterday’s meeting, there had been no dispute over the election date, sources said, adding that the debate was over merging the Huang Fu-hsing branch elections with that of general local branches, which would mean that about 90,000 members of the Huang Fu-hsing branch would no longer voting in a separate election.
The military branch has long been seen as a stronghold for “deep-blue” and “pro-China” factions, and the merger would mean a “dilution” of the votes for the party’s pro-localization faction.
DAREDEVIL: Honnold said it had always been a dream of his to climb Taipei 101, while a Netflix producer said the skyscraper was ‘a real icon of this country’ US climber Alex Honnold yesterday took on Taiwan’s tallest building, becoming the first person to scale Taipei 101 without a rope, harness or safety net. Hundreds of spectators gathered at the base of the 101-story skyscraper to watch Honnold, 40, embark on his daredevil feat, which was also broadcast live on Netflix. Dressed in a red T-shirt and yellow custom-made climbing shoes, Honnold swiftly moved up the southeast face of the glass and steel building. At one point, he stepped onto a platform midway up to wave down at fans and onlookers who were taking photos. People watching from inside
A Vietnamese migrant worker yesterday won NT$12 million (US$379,627) on a Lunar New Year scratch card in Kaohsiung as part of Taiwan Lottery Co’s (台灣彩券) “NT$12 Million Grand Fortune” (1200萬大吉利) game. The man was the first top-prize winner of the new game launched on Jan. 6 to mark the Lunar New Year. Three Vietnamese migrant workers visited a Taiwan Lottery shop on Xinyue Street in Kaohsiung’s Gangshan District (崗山), a store representative said. The player bought multiple tickets and, after winning nothing, held the final lottery ticket in one hand and rubbed the store’s statue of the Maitreya Buddha’s belly with the other,
Japan’s strategic alliance with the US would collapse if Tokyo were to turn away from a conflict in Taiwan, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said yesterday, but distanced herself from previous comments that suggested a possible military response in such an event. Takaichi expressed her latest views on a nationally broadcast TV program late on Monday, where an opposition party leader criticized her for igniting tensions with China with the earlier remarks. Ties between Japan and China have sunk to the worst level in years after Takaichi said in November that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could bring about a Japanese
MAKING WAVES: China’s maritime militia could become a nontraditional threat in war, clogging up shipping lanes to prevent US or Japanese intervention, a report said About 1,900 Chinese ships flying flags of convenience and fishing vessels that participated in China’s military exercises around Taiwan last month and in January last year have been listed for monitoring, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) Deputy Director-General Hsieh Ching-chin (謝慶欽) said yesterday. Following amendments to the Commercial Port Act (商港法) and the Law of Ships (船舶法) last month, the CGA can designate possible berthing areas or deny ports of call for vessels suspected of loitering around areas where undersea cables can be accessed, Oceans Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. The list of suspected ships, originally 300, had risen to about
RSS