Taking a closer look at the list of the KMT and PFP's 26-member alliance committee, it is understandable why the KMT's younger politicians are calling out for the chance to exercise their talents in the party's leadership affairs.
Co-chaired by KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and his PFP counterpart James Soong (宋楚瑜), the alliance committee -- in charge of coordinating the bid for the presidential election next March -- encompasses eight members from each party acting as co-conveners for eight sub-committees and another four selected members from each party serving as the alliance committee's members-at-large.
Excluding Lien and So-ong, it is interesting to note that while the 12 PFP mem-bers are mostly middle-aged politicians, the KMT's rep-resentatives are largely "old-timers" from the previous KMT administration.
For example, 71-year-old KMT Vice Chairman Chiang Ping-kun (
64-year-old KMT Vice Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (
"The KMT is full of talented people, regardless of age," said 46-year-old KMT Legislator Apollo Chen (
However, he added, "Now that the heads of the alliance's eight committees have been decided, I personally hope that the party authority will consider more places for younger politicians as members of these committees."
Outsiders should however not interpret the desire of the party's younger generation as a sign of infighting or jockeying for position, Chen said.
"It is merely about giving room for the younger politicians to contribute and let them feel they are appreciated," Chen said.
Echoing Chen's remarks, KMT legislator Kuo Tien-tsai (
"We respect the decision of the party authority [concerning the selected people on the list] and are fully behind the pairing of the Lien-Soong ticket," 41 year-old Kuo said, referring to the KMT-PFP alliance's announcement last Friday that Lien will lead the alliance's joint ticket as the presidential candidate with Soong, his former rival, as his running mate.
"Many of us just simply feel a bit puzzled [about the name list of the 26-member alliance committee,] that's all," Kuo said.
Kuo said that when the KMT lost power to the DPP in the 2000 presidential elections and Soong -- a former KMT member who quit the party to run his own campaign for the presidency against the KMT candidate Lien -- formed the PFP shortly after the 2000 elections, the PFP had tried to recruit numerous younger generation politicians from the KMT.
"Some left the KMT but many wanted to stay," Kuo said.
"It's just that it sits uneasily with those who refused to leave the KMT to now see those whom left the KMT for the PFP getting the chance to play big roles in their party and rub elbows with senior KMT leaders," Kuo said.
Kuo said that this has created doubt within many who chose to stay with the KMT.
"If they had chosen instead to go to the PFP back in 2000, they probably would enjoy a bigger stage because the PFP is a smaller party," he said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching