KMT officials fight over legislator-at-large seats

Fierce infighting within the KMT over the nomination of candidates for legislator-at-large has led one senior party official to offer his resignation.

Chao Shou-po (趙守博), head of the KMT's Organization and Development Committee, has tendered his resignation after coming under attack last week from Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄), one of the party's five vice chairmen.

Wu was upset that Chao and three other senior KMT officials had been included on a list of "recommended" legislator-at-large candidates.

Chao and the three officials sit on a committee that reviews the recommendations.

Legislator-at-large seats are allocated to political parties in proportion to the number of constituency-based seats they win in a legislative election.

The KMT is scheduled to begin reviewing a list of 130 possibilities today, picking 41 candidates among them.

The nine-member review committee will be headed by Vice Chairman Vincent Siew (蕭萬長).

At the KMT's Central Standing Committee meeting on Wednesday, Wu criticized Chao and three other senior officials for "acting as players and referees at the same time," a newspaper report said.

The three officials are former CEPD chairman Chiang Ping-kun (江丙坤); former speaker of the National Assembly Chen Ching-jang (陳金讓); and the party's deputy secretary-general, Huang Cheng-hsiung (黃正雄).

Chao said he would drop his bid for a legislator-at-large seat. He also said that he would ask the other three officials today to either leave the review committee or drop their legislative bid.

Meanwhile, top party officials are trying to persuade Chao to stay.