KMT and PFP sign deal on nominating election candidates

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) negotiators talked through the night until 5am yesterday, signing a written agreement on principles for a KMT-PFP joint nomination system in the year-end legislative elections.

As a result, the PFP yesterday helped the KMT stall a bill proposed by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

The bill proposed banning convicted persons from running for presidency and was clearly aimed at former KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who has been indicted on charges of embezzlement.

NO DETAILS

"I can't tell you what the agreement says, but we set up principles for making nominations," Hwang Yih-jiau (黃義交), a PFP legislator, said by telephone yesterday.

He said that a PFP incumbent lawmaker would be nominated in constituencies without a KMT incumbent. Where there is a KMT incumbent, that person will become the two parties' joint nomination if there is no PFP incumbent.

The principles ensure that at least five PFP lawmakers out of its total of 21 will be nominated.

ROLL CALL

The all-night negotiations were joined by PFP Legislator Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀) and Lee Fu-tien (李復甸) as well as KMT Secretary-General Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) and KMT Central Policy Committee Executive Director Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權).

Wu confirmed the existence of the agreement, but he declined to disclose details.

"We didn't write down which constituencies would go to which party in the agreement, and it still needs to be approved by the party," he said.

The two parties said they would try to reach an agreement within two weeks on how to nominate candidates in ten constituencies where there are incumbent lawmakers from both the PFP and the KMT seeking re-election.

CAUCUS MEETING

Hwang said the agreement was approved by caucus members in a meeting early yesterday morning, leading the PFP to support the KMT at yesterday's plenary session.

Some KMT lawmakers, however, opposed the agreement.

KMT Legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) of Kaohsiung City called the deal "very dirty," adding that PFP lawmakers had threatened to let a bill pass the legislature yesterday if their demands for a nomination agreement were not met.

"The PFP should be ashamed" for making such demands, she said.

The two parties formed an alliance in January, pledging to jointly nominate candidates for the year-end legislative election, when a single-member district system will be adopted.