Former premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday panned Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) over the party’s plan to replace Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) as its presidential candidate, saying it could hurt the party in the end.
The KMT is scheduled to hold an extempore party congress on Saturday to select a replacement for Hung, with Chu widely expected to be named the new candidate.
Su said it was a “politically calculated” move that might not necessarily be the best for the party.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
“What the KMT is doing now is something that has rarely occurred around the world, and the process is quite controversial,” Su said. “Someone is just being too smart and there is too much political calculation involved. As for who will end up being hurt, let me quote a TV show host: ‘Let us wait and see.’”
Although Su did not specify names, he is believed to be referring to Chu, who is also the New Taipei City mayor.
Asked whether he would consider running for New Taipei City mayor on the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ticket once the “politically calculating person” resigns to join the presidential reace, Su repeated: “Let us wait and see.”
Asked if he would be interested in running for the mayoral post, he gave the same answer.
Su made the remarks on the sidelines of the launch of an autobiography of former presidential adviser Wu Li-pei (吳澧培), a long-time Taiwanese independence advocate who has lived in exile for decades in the US, where he became a successful banker.
In the book — A Life of Insistences and Coincidences (一個堅持和無數巧合的人生) — Wu wrote about his observations of DPP heavyweights. He described former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) as “someone good at political calculation,” DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) as the “girl next door” type and Su as “a simple and straightforward person.”
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