Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman Yu Shyi-kun should apologize for adopting the “blue-excluding opinion polls” and the party should focus on actually rooting out corruption rather than just talking about it, a former DPP legislator said yesterday.
“It is a shame that a person who hurt the DPP so much is not willing to apologize for his mistake,” said former DPP legislator Lee Wen-chung (李文忠), referring to Yu’s remarks at the end of a meeting on Saturday to review the DPP’s latest election setback.
Yu refused to accept suggestions that the controversial polling method be abolished, arguing that “the DPP might as well give up conducting opinion polls, if those excluding blue-leaning voters were to be eliminated.”
The polls, used to help determine party nominees for the Jan. 12 legislative elections and the March 22 presidential election, attempted to identify and exclude supporters of the rival Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and prevent them from participating for fear they would manipulate the results in the KMT’s favor.
Following the DPP’s drubbing in the legislative elections, however, many party members criticized the polls for politically labeling respondents and encouraging the nomination of more extreme candidates.
The polls, they said, not only excluded pan-KMT or “blue” supporters but independent voters as well.
“Any system adopted by a party should be able to make the party even more competitive. I think former chairman Yu, rather than objecting to a review of the measure, should apologize publicly for adopting the opinion poll method,” Lee said.
The main reason the DPP suffered a decisive loss in the presidential election, Lee said, was its failure to actually put its anti-corruption campaign into practice.
“We have seen so many meetings reviewing the problem of corruption within the party, but instead of talking the talk, you must walk the walk,” he said.
Lee also said that the party’s Central Review Committee and anti-corruption council should immediately deal with the corruption cases.
Committee members should resign right away if they are unable to accomplish this, he said.
The former lawmaker, however, also gave the DPP credit for holding a series of meetings to review their setbacks.
“These face-to-face meetings between party members and heavyweights show that the DPP would not turn its back on problems, even when there are some conflicts and sparks,” he said.
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