A new election for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Central Standing Committee (CSC) is expected after a majority of committee members offered to resign over the party’s selective investigation into electoral bribery.
The wave of resignations, sparked by KMT Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) and 27 other members, came amid claims by some party delegates that almost every CSC member had bribed delegates with gifts during election campaigns, highlighting the bribery culture in the CSC election.
The CSC used to be the center of the party’s power structure, its members meeting once a week with most senior party officials to discuss party matters and approve major policies.
Prior to a directive by then-KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in 2005 for a direct election of CSC members and the implementation of a district voting system, the CSC was elected by the 210 members of the Central Committee, which itself was elected by more than 1,600 party delegates.
Sean Lien (連勝文), son of former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and who is among those who resigned from the CSC, said the district voting system — which allows party delegates to cast votes at local branches — encouraged bribery during CSC elections.
“Vote-buying is getting worse because the system makes it easier for candidates to get a hold of the number of votes in a district,” he said.
Chen Ting-yun (陳釘雲), who also resigned, said the district voting system was the main reason behind the bribery problem.
“Gift-sending in the CSC election is a historical glitch and revoking the election status of two members will not solve the problem,” he said.
The KMT on Tuesday revoked the election status of Yang Chi-hsiung (楊吉雄) and Chiang Da-lung (江達隆) for giving gifts to party delegates. The move, however, was confronted by a group of party delegates, who said they received gifts from almost all the candidates.
“Candidates for the Central Committee and CSC elections send all kinds of gifts — from moon cakes to handbags. We were also invited to endless banquets during the election campaigns. It’s an open secret,” a delegate said on condition of anonymity.
The competition for CSC seats remained intense even though the function of the committee was weakened after Ma set up of the Zhongshan meeting in 2005 as a preparatory meeting with top KMT officials. This left the committee with little power and turned it into a rubber-stamp mechanism.
Election bribery was especially serious in this year’s CSC election, as the importance of the committee is expected to increase after Ma took over the chairmanship this month.
KMT Legislator Ho Tsai-feng (侯彩鳳), who did not offer her resignation until yesterday, said a by-election alone would not change the bribery culture.
“If it is determined to reform, the KMT Evaluation and Disciplinary Committee should continue the investigation,” she said.
Sean Lien said the party should scrap the district voting system and start a single election with all voting booths centralized.
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