Print

Mail

wiki links

Wang urges KMT to pay attention to issues of ethnicity

Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday urged the party to draw up measures to handle perceived ethnic tensions, a factor which he said would determine next year's presidential election.

"Issues related to ethnicity are a significant concern for people in central and southern Taiwan," Wang said when approached by reporters in Nantou County. "Some people have been manipulating the issue. The KMT has to point them out and deal with it."

Wang, an ethnic Taiwanese, is likely to run for the KMT presidential nomination, which would put him in competition with former KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), a Mainlander.

Wang has not formally declared his bid, but has made comments about preparing for the presidential election.

Wang gave his remarks on ethnicity when asked by reporters about reports that some KMT members had criticized him for saying in a recent interview with Chinese-language China Times Weekly that Ma would have little chance of being elected as president because voters in southern Taiwan would not vote for a Mainlander.

Ma was born in Hong Kong in 1950 to Mainlander parents, who went to the former British colony after the KMT lost the Chinese civil war, and eventually moved to Taiwan.

Wang was quoted by the weekly as saying that "there has been a strong sentiment in central and southern Taiwan that they will not vote for Mainlanders."

Wang later said he had been misquoted, saying that he was not trying to provoke a rift between ethnic groups, but was merely urging the KMT to pay attention to a strategy the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) might use against Ma in the run-up to the presidential election.

Wang said that he believed that nominating a Mainlander as a presidential candidate would be a serious problem and that the KMT should address this instead of ignoring the issue.

Wang said earlier in an interview with Chinese-language Asia Weekly that being an ethnic Taiwanese was a strength he had but Ma lacked, and that could affect the competition against the DPP in the election.

But Wang dismissed reports that he was targeting Ma with his comments.

"I would never be the kind of person who manipulates the ethnicity issue," Wang said.

When asked to comment on Saturday on Wang's remarks on ethnicity, Ma urged the public to "hold politicians in contempt who play the ethnicity card" for political gains.

Ma said he was not suggesting Wang was one of those politicians and said he was referring to the DPP.

Some KMT members pushing for a Ma-Wang or Wang-Ma ticket believe their ethnicities would complement each other and be advantageous in the election.

But a staffer from Wang's camp, who wished to remain anonymous, said yesterday that Wang would never agree to pair up with Ma if that meant running as a vice presidential candidate in the election.

Additional reporting by CNA
This story has been viewed 1687 times.