Although there has been a precipitous drop in President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) approval rating, it is all but certain that he will stand again for the chairmanship of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) next year, meaning that he will maintain tight control of both party and state, political observers said.
According to KMT sources, after the policy of increasing fuel and electricity prices stirred up public discontent, some party members suggested during a meeting of the Central Standing Committee that Ma should concentrate on presidential politics and step down as party chairperson.
Such a proposal is unprecedented and has fueled rumors that there is a certain degree of jockeying for position going on inside the KMT as Ma begins his second and last term as president, sources said.
Ma’s supporters within the party, led by Vice President Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), have proposed amending party regulations and thereby providing a legal foundation for Ma to double as the KMT party chairperson.
Article 17 of the KMT charter stipulates only that a chairperson should be elected by all party members. It makes no mention as to whether the president and the party chairperson can be the same person.
Ma ran for the KMT chairmanship in 2009 after stepping down from the position in 2007 amid investigations into his alleged abuse of a special mayoral allowance fund during his two terms as Taipei mayor.
Some within the party have said that the proposed amendment to party regulations could be just an excuse as whoever raised the issue could have done so for the good of the party, or as a way to pave his own path to power.
Party sources said most KMT members felt Ma would definitely seek re-election as party chairman next year, because failure to consolidate his authority in the party would mean, “he wouldn’t just be a lame duck; he would be unable to walk at all.”
Meanwhile, Chiayi City Mayor Huang Min-huei (黃敏惠) said that Ma was unlikely to become a lame duck, adding that the party would not let him become one.
“Taiwan cannot continue expending effort on internal division; for the nation we should let President Ma do his job and avoid the him becoming a lame duck when promoting policies,” said Huang, who is also one of the KMT’s deputy chairmen.
Greater Taichung Deputy Mayor Shyu Jong-shyong (徐中雄) of the KMT said Ma faced the problem of becoming a lame duck only because he does not currently enjoy a high level of support in the polls.
Noting that former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) did not have such a problem when he was president and KMT chairman and managed to retain a great deal of influence prior to handing over power, Shyu said that Ma’s problem was that he lacked a strong presence.
Ma should strengthen the functions of the Central Standing Committee and seek to generate more support, Shyu said, adding that in the future, the president should pay more attention to policy formulation to avoid giving the impression that he is indecisive.
Only then would supporters have solid ground on which to support Ma, Shyu said.
If Ma were re-elected KMT chairman, his tenure would be extended to 2017, political observers said, adding that although pro-Ma supporters generally feel that Ma will not appoint a successor, he could still play a decisive role in anointing the party’s presidential candidate for the 2016 presidential election.
Translated by Jake Chung, staff writer
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching