Soochow University political science associate professor Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) criticized the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) on Tuesday, accusing DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of deceit, saying that she had promised him a nomination, but now announced that a poll must be conducted first instead.
In a SuperFM radio interview that aired on Tuesday night, Hsu said that on April 8, Tsai promised that the DPP would nominate him for the legislative seat representing the eighth electoral district in Taichung, saying that only Hsu could win against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣).
Tsai had promised that she would take care of potential resentment from local DPP factions and that there would not be a poll to determine the DPP candidate in the district, Hsu said in the interview.
The DPP broke its promises, because he has been asked to participate in a poll with DPP Taichung City Councilor Hsieh Chih-chung (謝志忠) on June 15, Hsu said.
Hsu called the event a trap for him, saying he would not have enough time before the event to prepare to compete with a local councilor.
“The DPP completely failed to honor its word. This is not only disrespectful to me personally, but also disrespectful to voters in Taichung,” Hsu said in the interview. “I never thought that a party I have loved and supported so much in the past would hurt me this way.”
However, DPP Campaign Strategy Committee convener Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) yesterday denied that Tsai had made Hsu such a promise.
“The chairperson would never make promises about nominations; it has always been the Campaign Strategy Committee’s responsibility to decide such things,” Su told a brief news conference at DPP headquarters in Taipei yesterday.
He said that on April 8, participants at the meeting were only trying to make sure that Hsu would be willing to accept a direct nomination if the party were to forgo the polling process.
“However, during the period of time since, we have found that Hsieh has a good basis of support and sometimes his support surpasses Chiang’s. Therefore, we have discussed conducting a poll to see whether Hsieh or Hsu would have a better chance of winning against Chiang,” Su said.
“If [Hsu thinks] there is not enough time, we could give [him] more time. Our ultimate objective is to win the seat,” Su added.
Su said that Tsai had never promised that Hsu would receive the official DPP nomination without going through the poll, “because no one could make such a decision other than the Central Executive Committee and the Campaign Strategy Committee.”
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