Print

Mail

wiki links

Ma stays impartial on KMT candidate for Taipei mayor

With speculation already circulating about who will represent the major opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to run in next year's Taipei mayoral election, KMT Chairman-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday that all KMT candidates for local elections should be chosen through party primaries.

Ma, who won a landslide victory in the KMT chairmanship election July 16 and is scheduled to be sworn in to his new post Aug. 19, said that he welcomes all talented people who are determined to serve the city of Taipei as mayor to enter the race.

Ma denied a media report that sitting Taipei Deputy Mayor Yeh Chin-chuan (葉金川) is his "man in pocket" to be the KMT candidate in the next Taipei mayoral election, saying that as a party chairman, he must remain impartial. He added that he will see to it that the KMT candidate for next year's Taipei mayoral election is chosen via a party primary.

He added that the KMT has maintained a viable mechanism to produce KMT candidates for major elections. If no conclusion is reached via preliminary negotiations, primaries conducted via voting or public opinion polls should both be feasible and effective ways of producing KMT candidates, he said.

On the notion of a merger of the three pan-blue political parties -- the KMT, the People First Party (PFP) and the New Party -- in order to beat the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and its ally, the Taiwan Solidarity Union, in the next Taipei mayoral election, Ma said that it is still too early to talk about how a pan-blue candidate should be produced for the mayoral election.

"The earliest time should be at the beginning of next year," he added.

Meanwhile, KMT Legislator John Chiang (蔣孝嚴) said yesterday that he will seek the KMT candidacy for next year's Taipei mayoral election.
This story has been viewed 1940 times.