After the ruling party's victory in Saturday's legislative elections, the DPP formed a task force yesterday with the goal of conducting internal party reform.
The 11-person task force includes party Chairman Frank Hsieh (
The three major issues on the task force's agenda are reform of the party's structure, candidate nomination system and the structure of local chapters.
The findings of the task force will be sent to the party's Central Standing Committee for further discussion and to the National Assembly for final approval.
The decision to form the task force was made at the party's first Central Standing Committee meeting after Saturday's polls.
In addition to internal reforms, the meeting also reviewed Saturday's polls and touched on next year's elections for county and city councilors and township and village representatives.
Briefing the media about the closed-door meeting, Hsieh said that although the DPP will become the largest party in the legislature, reforms have to continue.
"After being the opposition party for more than a decade, the DPP has become the ruling party," Hsieh said. "The end of the elections marks the beginning of a series of challenges. It's the right time to seriously consider how the party can perform better and serve the public more effectively."
During the two-hour meeting, Wu proposed adding five more Central Standing Committee members and to include legislators' performance and attendance in the legislature to the list of criteria used in detemining who the party's nomiees will be.
"In a bid to have a strong and conscientious team in the legislature, the party is asking that each and every DPP lawmaker be disciplined, efficient and clean," he said.
Su, who was also present at the meeting, told reporters during a mid-session break that the DPP should work harder and push for reforms.
"I won re-election not only because I'm lucky but also because I work hard," he said. "However, politics are always unpredictable. Your victory today doesn't necessarily guarantee another triumph tomorrow. We're racing against time to become a better party."
While the DPP was defeated in a number of significant counties and cities -- Taoyuan, Keelung and Hsinchu -- Su is one of the nine DPP members who won a local election.
Analyzing the party's failure in the mayoral and commissioner elections and triumphs in the legislative elections, Su said that the DPP's legislative success was attributed to the sound nomination system, vote allocation mechanism and luck.
The failure of local chiefs, on the other hand, could be due to the economic slowdown, he said.
Deputy Secretary-General Hsu Yang-ming (許陽明) expressed the same opinion.
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