President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday led newly elected members of the Central Standing Committee (CSC) on a trip to Pingtung County to campaign for the party’s candidate for county commissioner.
Ma, in his capacity as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman ,will preside over five other CSC meetings in central and southern Taiwan ahead of local government elections on Dec. 5 to raise support for KMT candidates.
“We will hold the CSC in other parts of Taiwan to hear the voices of locals and help develop local industries ... Of course we will spare no efforts to take back Pingtung County next month,” Ma said yesterday while campaigning for Chou Dian-lun (周典論), the party’s candidate there.
Ma said the race in Pingtung was tight, urging party members to put all their efforts into helping Chou’s campaign.
Yang Yuan-hsun (楊元勳), director of the party’s Pingtung branch, said the election result could be decided by as few as 10,000 votes.
Meanwhile, KMT spokesman Lee Chien-jung (李建榮) yesterday dismissed allegations that Ma had accused the Cabinet of poorly handling the signing of the financial memorandum of understanding (MOU) with China.
The Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) cited Ma as saying that the Cabinet’s signing of the MOU had flaws and demanding the Cabinet review the process.
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) has criticized the Cabinet for showing disrespect to the legislature by rushing to sign the MOU with Beijing on Monday night and ignoring the legislature’s right to supervise the process.
Lee said Ma was not dissatisfied with the Cabinet’s handling of the MOU. The Cabinet communicated with the legislature before inking the MOU with China, he said.
Taipei and Beijing on Monday evening signed a MOU on financial regulatory cooperation, agreeing on issues such as cross-strait financial supervision, information sharing and risk management. Wang said that in only reporting the MOU on Monday morning, the Cabinet hadn’t given the legislature time to discuss the matter.
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