The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday sought to remain above the fray within the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), saying the effect of a pan-green split in Kaohsiung and a possible one in Tainan over the KMT’s own candidates was unclear.
Following Kaohsiung County Commissioner Yang Chiu-hsing’s (楊秋興) unofficial declaration that he would join the Greater Kaohsiung mayoral election, Tainan Mayor Hsu Tain-tsair (許添財) appears likely to join the race in Tainan. Both men are DPP members and both lost in May’s party primaries, to Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) and DPP Legislator William Lai (賴清德) respectively.
KMT spokesman Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) said his party would assess the impact of the pan-green split, but whether the party will benefit from the splits remained unknown.
“We’ve said that the KMT will not count on winning based on the DPP splits, and so the DPP should not shift the focus and blame their integration problems on us,” he said.
KMT Secretary-General King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) said the party had not tried to persuade Yang to split the pan-green vote by running, and he denied the party was involved in the possible Tainan split.
KMT Legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順), who is running in Kaohsiung, and its Tainan candidate, Kuo Tien-tsai (郭添財), have spared no efforts to promote the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) when meeting with local residents, and more voters in the south agreed that the ECFA and other government measures would improve their lives, Su said
“The DPP should understand that people in the south can no longer be persuaded just by pro-independence ideology, and it won’t get as much support if it failed to present solid policies,” he said.
The KMT will hold a provisional congress today and tomorrow at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, and use the occasion to campaign for the November’s special municipality elections.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) will host a one-hour campaign section this morning in his capacity as KMT chairman, leading party officials and members to cheer the five candidates.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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