KMT ousts another eight members who are seeking office without party consent

The KMT yesterday ousted another eight members who are either seeking legislative office without the party's nod or running under the banner of a rival party.

The purged include incumbent lawmaker Lin Jih-jia (林志嘉), who is running for re-election, and Kinmen County Commissioner Chen Shui-tsai (陳水在), who hopes to represent Kinmen in the legislature.

Of the eight, seven had their membership revoked for running without the party's nomination, according to the party's Evaluation and Discipline Committee.

In addition to Lin and Chen, the others are Keelung's Ho Sheng-lung (何聖隆), Taipei City's Chang Ling (張玲), Taipei County's Wu Cheng-shan (吳誠善), Taoyuan County's Wang Chi-sheng (王啟盛) and Tainan County's Lu Yi-hsuan (盧憶萱).

Aboriginal lawmaker Lin Cheng-er (林正二) was expelled for running for an Aboriginal seat on the People First Party ticket.

This was the second time that Lin Jih-jia has been ousted from the KMT for running for public office without the party's nomination.

In 1997, Lin ran for Taipei County commissioner without the KMT's nod against nominee Hsieh Shen-shan (謝深山).

He rejoined the KMT roughly a year later.

Lin is running for a legislative seat in Taipei County this year.

The four-term lawmaker had originally planned to make a second bid for the Taipei County commissioner seat, but gave up after losing to the New Party's Wang Chien-shien (王建火宣) in an opinion poll in September.

The poll was held as a part of election cooperation plans between the New Party and KMT.

After the poll, Lin said he would not seek any other public office and would quit politics.

But Lin changed his mind and decided to seek re-election in October, after the KMT had finalized its nominations for the Dec. 1 legislative races.