Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday said she was confident that the party would reach a consensus on nominating candidates for the legislative and presidential polls in 2012 after the former New Tide faction and supporters of former premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) won Sunday’s elections to dominate the party’s second-highest decision-making body.
Tsai said that although the presidential and legislative elections were more than one year away, she had full confidence in the party’s ability to consolidate consensus on the nomination of presidential and legislative candidates.
“Since 2008, we have had to reach consensus on nominations, and we are beginning to get used to such a decision-making mechanism,” she said.
Media had recently reported that the now-disbanded New Tide faction and Su supporters were likely to dictate the nomination of presidential and vice presidential candidates after their strong showing on Sunday.
The party on Sunday elected members of its Central Executive Committee, Central Standing Committee and Central Review Committee. The former New Tide faction secured three seats in the 10-member Central Standing Committee, the party’s second-highest decision-making body.
It was followed by Su supporters, who won two seats.
Former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) was elected Central Executive Committee member, but did not make it to the Central Standing Committee. Supporters of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) did not win any seats.
Asked whether she felt sidelined since she was not close to any faction, Tsai said she did not, adding that she wasn’t worried about an imbalance in factional power.
Regarding Lu’s absence from the Central Standing Committee, Tsai said the party would examine the structure of the committee to see whether there was any way to strengthen the mechanism by incorporating different voices to the decision-making process.
Tsai was also asked to comment on her election rival in the Sinbei City mayoral contest, Eric Chu (朱立倫) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), who yesterday proposed increasing the monetary compensation for motorists to dispose of their motor scooters, thus encouraging them to take public transportation.
Tsai said the problem with Chu’s policies was that many of them were unfeasible.
“Where would the money come from?” she asked, adding that such a project would have been implemented a long time ago had it been feasible.
Another problem with Chu’s policies was that they were individual projects rather than part of a bigger plan, therefore minimizing their overall impact, Tsai said.
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