Sun, Jan 22, 2017 page3

• Hung accepts chair election criticism

  UNFAIRLY IMPUGNED? The KMT chairwoman slammed pension reform, saying that the president had defamed society’s ‘most stable groups,’ and deliberately stirred conflicts

  • By Shih Hsiao-kuang / Staff reporter
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  Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) said she is not against reforming regulations requiring 3 percent of party members’ signatures to validate a bid for the party’s chair, following KMT Vice Chairman and party chair hopeful Hau Lung-bin’s (郝龍斌) description of the stipulation as a “technical barrier.”

  While on a visit to the US on Friday, Hung told reporters in Los Angeles that the KMT’s internal election signature collection process is plagued with problems.

  The process has long been viewed as a formality, and party members’ signatures are often invalidated after being found on more than one candidate’s signature list, Hung said, adding that the issue should be addressed by discussion and any changes to the electoral process should be approved by a party national congress.

  

  Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu, center, second left, speaks during a fundraiser held by the party in Los Angeles on Friday.

  Photo courtesy of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)

  She said she is not against reforms that aim to facilitate “authentic signature collection,” lowering the threshold, or even abolishing the process altogether.

  Hau earlier in the week called the signature threshold requirement “unnecessary.”

  In past chairperson elections, the number of signatures candidates garnered far exceeded the total number of votes the candidates went on to receive in the elections, Hau said.

  

  Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Vice Chairman Hau Lung-bin, left, hands out spring couplets to Cheng Kung Public Housing residents in Taipei yesterday.

  Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times

  For example in the most recent chairperson race, Hung had more than 80,000 signatures, but she was elected with about 70,000 votes, Hau said, adding that of those, only about 30,000 were considered valid, as they only endorsed Hung.

  When party members endorse more than one candidate, candidates who in the end have too many invalid signatures fail to pass the threshold and are forced to drop out, Hau said.

  Hung also reiterated her discontent with the freezing of the party’s assets, saying that paying salaries is an organization’s legal obligation.

  However, Hung said the KMT is unable to meet its legal responsibilities because the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government’s “illegal agency”— a reference to the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee — has frozen its savings and nationalized KMT-owned Central Investment Co and Hsinyutai Co.

  The committee should not deprive the KMT’s workers of their legal rights, Hung said.

  Because the Ministry of Labor had said two days earlier that the dispute should be referred to the Executive Yuan, the party’s younger workers on Wednesday stormed the Executive Yuan and disrupted a committee that was discussing the issue, Hung said.

  It was “heart-wrenching” to see young people put in handcuffs and taken to police stations or the prosecutors’ office, Hung said, referring to offenses including insulting a public official or office and damaging historic buildings.

  “The protesting students who occupied the Legislative Yuan and stormed the Executive Yuan during the Sunflower movement faced no punishment after the DPP took office,” she said.

  Hung also slammed the DPP’s pension reform, saying that it had divided society.

  Military personnel, public servants and public-school teachers, who have long been society’s “most stable groups,” were not against reform, but could not stand the unreasonable defamation they had to endure during the process and President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) deliberate manufacturing of conflicts between different social groups, Hung said.

  The Cabinet dropped charges against Sunflower movement protesters in May last year when the DPP administration took office, but the charges dropped were confined to those against “offenses trialed only upon complaint.”

  The trial for the charges against Sunflower movement participants involve alleged insults of public officials or offices or damage to historic buildings is still ongoing.

  Additional Reporting by Alison Hsiao
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