Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Central Standing Committee member Yao Chiang-lin (姚江臨) yesterday filed a civil suit against KMT Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) over party headquarters’ decision to move next year’s KMT chairperson election forward by two months.
The committee on Wednesday last week passed a motion to change the date of the election, despite fewer than 10 of the 40 committee members being present.
According to the KMT’s preliminary schedule, the chairperson and representative elections were scheduled for May 20, followed by Central Committee and Central Standing Committee elections on July 8 and July 29 respectively.
The Central Standing Committee on Wednesday also passed a plan to end separate votes for party representatives of the Huang Fu-hsing branch, a special branch of the KMT whose members are military veterans or their family members.
Yao said that the decision to change the voting regulations and the electoral structure less than six months before the elections was “unfair” to party representatives.
He asked the Taipei District Court to make last week’s motions invalid and to stop the party from enacting the new election-related measures.
The court said it had assigned the case to Judge Chang Yu-chia (張宇葭).
Meanwhile, outside the court, a group calling themselves the Blue Sky Action Alliance shouted slogans in support of Hung.
One alliance member called Yao former legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng’s (王金平) “running dog,” adding: “Those two should get out of the KMT.”
Alliance members said it was their mission to protect the KMT and rid it of “traitors” like Yao.
“Long ago people talked of ridding the country of Manchus and restoring China,” they said. “Today we must get rid of traitors to restore the Republic of China.”
The group shouted slogans such as: “Get rid of Yao and Wang” and “Be patriotic and loyal to the party, support Hung Hsiu-chu.”
One party member, who declined to be named, said the main reason behind Yao’s haste in bringing legal action against Hung is the plan to end the Huang Fu-hsing branch’s separate election of party representatives.
The changes to the chairperson election are of secondary importance to those opposing the motion, the member said, adding that members of the Huang Fu-hsing branch account for nearly 90,000 people, one-third of all KMT members.
According to the proposed changes, the ceiling on Huang Fu-hsing representatives would be removed, putting the squeeze on the prolocalization faction, the member said.
Among the KMT’s intra-party factions, there is a pro-localization and a pro-China faction.
Wang, a Kaohsiung native, is regarded by many pan-blue supporters as the key representative of the prolocalization faction.
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