The Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee (CTOC, 中華奧會) yesterday re-elected incumbent chairman Huang Ta-chou (黃大洲), a former Taipei City mayor and a KMT heavyweight, for a second four-year term in the chair, despite speculation that the DPP government had planned to engineer Huang's replacement with a pro-DPP member.
Chinese-language media reports had said that the DPP had been determined since coming to power last year to arrange for pro-DPP figures to be elected to the CTOC's 19-member executive committee and, eventually, to dominate the executive.
There are currently no avowedly pro-DPP members on the 69-strong CTOC, which has for most of its existence been dominated by the KMT, but speculation had centered on the possibility that the government was lobbying politically neutral members of the committee to declare for the party.
Political analysts speculated yesterday that President Chen Shui-bian (
Speaking at a press conference after his re-election yesterday, however, Huang rejected talk of political interference.
"Sports has nothing to do with the political parties and nothing to do with politics," Huang said.
The CTOC, formerly the Chinese Olympic Committee, was established in China in 1922. Since Taiwan's separation from China in 1949, the committee, nominally a non-governmental organization but substantially funded by KMT members, has focused on exploring possibilities for developing foreign relations by promoting sports exchanges.
The entire executive was also up for election yesterday, as were four vice chairman posts.
The election resulted in no apparent change to its political composition.
Once elected, the executive also adopted 26 unpaid consultants, proposed by Huang, from various fields, including Wang Yung-tsai (
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