PFP announces its roster of candidates

The People First Party (PFP) got a jump start on the year-end county commissioner races yesterday, announcing a list of five candidates and calling for pan-blue cooperation in the election.

The PFP roster has Legislator Liu Wen-hsiung (劉文雄) running in Keelung City, Legislator Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋) for Taipei County, Legislator Hsu Yao-chang (徐耀昌) in Miaoli County and Legislator Chung Shao-ho (鍾紹和) in Kaohsiung County. Former legislator Hsieh Chang-chieh (謝章捷) will run for the Changhua County position.

"I am asking the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT], PFP and even the New Party to work together to produce a fair nomination mechanism for the county commissioner races," Chou said yesterday morning at a joint press conference at the Legislative Yuan with his fellow hopefuls.

The pan-blue parties should work together to support just one candidate for each county, he said.

The KMT should get its act together about an inter-party nomination procedure, Chou said, noting that the party won't decide on its candidates until May or June. That would be too late to initiate KMT-PFP cooperation to combat the DPP's candidates, he said.

Chou's plea for pan-blue unity was echoed by KMT Legislator Lee Chia-chin (李嘉進) yesterday at the Legislative Yuan. Lee is planning to run for the Taipei County commissioner's job and has scheduled a press conference today to announce his campaign.

Although the KMT has not yet begun its nomination process, Lee said he spoke with KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) at noon yesterday about his plans to seek the Taipei County job. Lee said Lien encouraged him to run.

He called on the KMT and PFP to each nominate their own candidates for the various races and then come to an agreement on one candidate for each race.

Despite the legislators' pleas, however, KMT headquarters said yesterday that there would be no change to the party's nomination timetable. The party will stick to its original timetable and then talk with the PFP, said Liao Feng-teh (廖風德), head of the KMT's organization and development committee.

The race for Taipei County commissioner heated up yesterday, with the news that Council for Hakka Affairs Chairman Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) submitted his resignation to the Executive Yuan on Thursday night and plans to announce his candidacy tomorrow.