Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Secretary-General Lin Join-sane (林中森) yesterday dismissed the labeling of the party’s newly elected Central Standing Committee (CSC) members as being “pro-President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九),” saying that all party members’ first priority is ensuring the party’s prosperity.
Lin was quoted dismissing the claims by an attendee of a routine KMT meeting yesterday, two days after the party cast a vote to elect 32 members to form the Central Standing Committee — the party’s highest decisionmaking body.
The 39-member committee consists of 32 members elected by party members and seven chosen by the party chairman, Ma.
Following the election, Lin was quoted as saying that he made a telephone call offering his congratulations to each of the newly elected members, all of whom voiced unequivocal support to the party as a whole, and not only to Ma.
“While some of the public have labeled specific candidates as ‘pro-Ma,’ all the CSC members and party cadres are in fact working together for the common good of the party,” Lin was quoted as saying.
The election was a peaceful election, during which all parties abided by the law and regulations, Lin was quoted by the participant as saying.
In contrast, elections for the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Central Standing Committee and Central Executive Committee members were often embroiled in allegations of intervention by gangs or riddled with inter-party mudslinging, Lin was quoted as saying, adding that the public would make a own sound judgment on the two parties.
Dismissing allegations of a lukewarm response to the election by party members, Lin was quoted as saying that the number of candidates in committee elections and voter turnout rates had reached record-highs in recent years.
Lin was also quoted as saying that he hoped the two CSC members designated to head the KMT Youth League and the KMT Youth Affairs — Ling Tao (凌濤) and Chang Chia-chun (張嘉郡) — and other party cadres would make a concerted effort to boost the party’s youth presence.
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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