Former vice president Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) has announced his campaign team for his bid to become chairman of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), as well as a campaign theme song.
Wu on Friday said that he has asked former Mainland Affairs Council deputy minister Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀) to be the campaign manager, while Shih Chien University professor Chiang Min-chin (江岷欽), former KMT lawmaker Lee Ching-hua (李慶華) and National Taiwan University professor Lin Huo-wang (林火旺) have been asked to act as spokespeople.
Wu’s campaign office will be in the Taiwan Glass building on Nanjing E Road in Taipei and will officially open after the Lunar New Year holiday, which begins on Friday next week until Feb. 1.
Photo: CNA
Wu said he wrote the lyrics for the campaign song himself, adding that he wanted to write a song that sounded good and was easy to remember.
In response to media queries whether his choice of Chang as campaign manager would be an issue given his previous legal troubles, Wu said he had known Chang for more than a decade and his contribution toward the KMT and People First Party alliance in 2008 was quite significant.
In 2014 Chang was accused by then-president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration of leaking state secrets to China. The Taipei Prosecutors’ Office in 2015 said that it had closed the case because there was not enough evidence to support the allegations.
Meanwhile, former KMT vice chairman Steve Chan (詹啟賢), who tendered his resignation on Jan. 7, said he was considering running in the chairperson election, adding that he would not make the decision quickly.
Chan said he would try to make a decision before the Lunar New Year holidays.
The Chinese-language China Times reported on Jan. 7 that Chan quit over KMT Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu’s (洪秀柱) disavowal of an administrative contract that he secured from Ill-gotten Party Assets Committee Chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄), which was said to be fully authorized by Hung, but which she later refused to sign.
Hung has dismissed the report, asking the media not to “maliciously drive a wedge” between her and Chan.
Additional reporting by Liao Shu-ling
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