Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilor Kao Chia-yu (高嘉瑜) yesterday staged a one-woman protest against the recent actions by the party’s Election Campaign Strategy Committee.
Holding a placard that accused the election committee of making opaque decisions on election nominations, Kao walked into the party’s Taipei headquarters right before its Central Executive Committee’s (CEC) weekly meeting was scheduled to begin.
“Chairperson, I am Kao Chia-yu, and I want to protest against the Election Campaign Strategy Committee’s non-transparent decision,” she shouted as DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) entered the meeting room.
DPP Legislator Chen Ming-wen (陳明文), a CEC member, then blocked Kao from entering the room.
Kao told reporters that she had learned the election committee had been in touch People First Party Taipei City Councilor Vivian Huang (黃珊珊), and reached an agreement that the DPP would not nominate a candidate for the legislative seat representing Taipei’s Neihu (內湖) and Nangang (南港) districts in return for Huang cooperating with the DPP if Tsai win’s January’s presidential election.
Kao had previously said that she was willing to run for that seat.
DPP Deputy Secretary-General Hung Yao-fu (洪耀福) later told Kao that “if the party wants you to run, then you run; if it does not want you to run, then you do not run — unless you quit the party, and then we would not be able to tell you what to do.”
During its meeting, the CSC backed the election committee’s decision not to nominate candidates for 11 electoral districts in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung and Hsinchu and Lienchiang counties, election committee convener Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) told a press conference.
Candidates from third political forces, including the New Power Party (NPP), Social Democratic Party and Green Party Taiwan would benefit from the DPP’s decision not to nominate candidates in some of those districts, while the DPP would throw its support behind independent former Hsinchu County commissioner Cheng Yung-chin (鄭永金), who is running for one of the county’s legislative seats, Su said.
Su also said that the election committee wanted to talk with DPP Taipei City Councilor Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) before it made any decision about Liang running for a legislative seat.
Liang earlier this month said he would not take part in the legislative elections after former DPP chairman Lin I-hsiung (林義雄) said that as a newly elected city councilor, Liang would be breaking political promises to voters if he ran for a legislative seat.
Heavy metal band Chthonic lead vocalist Freddy Lim (林昶佐), who is running for the legislative seat representing Taipei’s Zhongzheng (中正) and Wanhua (萬華) districts on the NPP ticket, welcomed the DPP’s decision not to nominate a candidate for that district.
“With such an atmosphere of solidarity, Taiwanese would have a greater opportunity of achieving the aim of overturning the Chinese Nationalist Party’s [KMT] long-term control of the legislature,” Lim said in a news release. “The decision is not a relief; rather, it is a greater responsibility for me. I will continue to visit and gain support from the more than 200,000 voters in Zhongzheng and Wanhua districts, for that I believe that the victory can only be won through solidarity.”
“Let us together make society a better place, and stand united to complete this historical democratic reform,” he said.
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