New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫), the sole candidate for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairmanship, yesterday held meetings in Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Miaoli to explicate his policy proposals to party members, saying “erroneous policies and inappropriate deeds” had resulted in the party’s major defeat on Nov. 29.
Chu said today’s KMT “has drifted away from the people” and that the party should “face the frustration and revive the spirit that helped found the party to stand with the people.”
He likened the party to a baseball team, claiming that the KMT’s future could no longer rely on a political star or a few leaders.
Photo: Cheng Shu-ting, Taipei Times
In order to have a strong team, the party would have to turn everybody into major players and win back what the party has lost, Chu said.
The KMT would be an “open, everybody’s KMT,” he said, adding that the openness applies to the party’s attitude, information and finances.
The party members would know that the KMT belongs to every party member, as they would be able to express their views online and the decisionmaking process would be transparent to them via the Internet, Chu said.
“The party base is the foundation of all of [the party’s] strength,” he said.
KMT Legislators Liao Cheng-ching (廖正井) and Apollo Chen (陳學聖) applauded Chu as the only hope for the KMT’s resurgence and hinted that they would support Chu’s presidential candidacy in the 2016 presidential election, saying that they “would not allow the chairman-ship election to be the only race in which Chu runs.”
Chu responded by reiterating that he would support whomever the party chooses as its presidential candidate.
When asked about remarks made by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) about his “taking all the dissatisfaction and whatever blame there may be” in his new year address, Chu said the blame should be “shouldered by all” within the party.
“Society has various kinds of dissatisfaction with the current political environment, economic condition and social atmosphere. The president, as the country’s leader, certainly has to bear [the responsibility of] the disgruntlement, but we as local leaders and other party members [who are working in the government] also have to shoulder the burden,” he said.
On the controversy over the KMT’s party assets, Chu said he would delve into the issue and invite professional and politically neutral experts to help examine it.
Chu is expected to be elected as KMT chairman on Jan. 17 and officially take office on Jan. 21, when he would preside over his first KMT Central Standing Committee (CSC) meeting.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said with Chu taking over the party leadership and Ma absent from the CSC meeting, the ruling party and the government would be “out of sync” and the party center’s policies would be restricted to the party.
Additional reporting by Wang Wen-hsuan
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