Cooperation between the pan-blue parties for the year-end legislative elections ran into trouble yesterday, with the tiny New Party insisting on nominating eight candidates for December's elections instead of the four its political allies had suggested.
High-ranking officials from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday said that they would continue to negotiate with the New Party.
In a bid to secure a pan-blue majority in the elections, the KMT and its smaller ally, the People First Party (PFP), had agreed to a scheme that would allow each of the three pan-blue parties to nominate a certain number of candidates in each constituency to prevent them from splitting the pan-blue vote.
Each constituency elects several legislators, so parties usually try to organize their supporters to vote in a way that maximizes the number of candidates elected.
According to KMT Secretary-General Lin Fong-cheng (林豐正), the party has reached a consensus with the PFP about the number of legislative hopefuls each party would nominate for the year-end legislative elections.
"It is probably about 65 and 42 seats respectively for the KMT and the PFP," Lin said when approached by reporters.
"The New Party wants to have eight seats, which is something that I still need to talk over with the PFP," Lin said.
Liao Feng-teh (
New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming (
"For the party's political survival, we the New Party need to get at least 2 percent in the year-end legislative elections," Yu said.
"I think our supporters would not be happy if the [KMT and the PFP] just give us some small minor role," he said.
The New Party holds just one seat in the 225-seat legislature.
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