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KMT ratifies joint nomination system

Despite complaints from several party legislators, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday ratified the agreement it signed with the People First Party (PFP) last Friday outlining the principles for a joint nomination system.

Under the new system, the KMT agreed to ensure that at least five PFP lawmakers will be nominated as joint election candidates. The two parties also agreed to merge next year.

No incumbent

The agreement stipulates 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 nominee if there is no PFP incumbent.

While the KMT promised to give the PFP nomination priority in several districts, the party insisted that the joint nomination system would have to follow the KMT's election mechanism to decide on final candidates via a primary and polls.

Although the KMT's Central Standing Committee passed the agreement, some committee members accused the PFP of being a "trouble maker" and disrupting pan-blue unity.

"KMT members and pan-blue supporters are being blackmailed by the PFP. My nomination bid is not an issue. The PFP should know that it can't threaten the KMT," KMT Legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) said yesterday after the meeting at KMT headquarters.

"Pan-blue supporters should think about who is the real trouble maker," she added, while urging the PFP not to blackmail the KMT by threatening to derail former KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) presidential bid.

The KMT signed the deal with the PFP in exchange for the PFP's help in stalling a bill proposed by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

The bill proposed banning convicted persons from running for the presidency and was clearly aimed at Ma, who has been indicted on charges of embezzlement.

KMT Legislator Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) joined Huang in urging the PFP to show its sincerity, while shrugging off calls by the PFP for her to withdraw from the legislative election.

`Needs to win'

"The legislative election is important and the KMT needs to win a majority in the legislature. The two parties should decide on final candidates through `scientific' means, such as polls, rather than through private negotiations," she said.

KMT Spokesman Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) said that his party would abide by the spirit of the agreement and that the PFP should show its sincerity by formally recognizing the pact.

"We will communicate with party legislators who harbor concerns about the agreement," he added.
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