Amid a controversy over questionable membership applications submitted ahead of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chair election, Taipei City Councilor Yeh Lin-chuan (葉林傳) yesterday apologized on behalf of his office director, Huang Hsiu-ling (黃秀玲), after the KMT confirmed that Huang had recruited potential members who had organized crime backgrounds.
Online news outlet Up Media on Sunday reported that a KMT campaign staffer had submitted 307 membership applications last month to the party’s Taipei branch, many from people with criminal backgrounds.
One such applicant was Wan Shao-cheng (萬少丞), who allegedly played key role in a nightclub brawl in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) in 2014 that resulted in the beating death of an off-duty police officer.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
KMT Taipei chapter director Chen Yung-jen (陳永仁) had previously said the party had located the applicant surnamed Wan, but that an investigation was needed to verify the man’s identity.
Media personality Clara Chou (周玉蔻) on Tuesday night posted copies of Wan’s party membership application and his national identification card on Facebook.
The documents confirmed that Wan was the man linked to the policeman’s death and that Huang had recommended him to the party.
The KMT has reportedly been pushing new member recruitment ahead of its elections for chair and party representatives on May 20.
Yeh said in a statement that “days of investigation had proven that Huang had breached the KMT charter by submitting membership applications on behalf of unqualified individuals.”
Huang had been seeking membership applicants to boost her chances of being elected as one of the representative, he said.
Yeh said that he had not looked into the applications that Huang had turned in because he thought they would have been screened according to KMT regulations, adding that he asked Huang withdraw as a representative candidate.
Yeh apologized for the controversy and any ill feelings that his negligence might have caused and promised to do his best to assist the KMT in screening membership applicants.
In related news, former vice president Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), who is running for KMT chairman and whom Yen backed on Saturday last week, on Tuesday said that he does not know Yeh well, having met him only once.
Wu, a former KMT secretary-general, said that “people should apply to become a member of the party of their own free will, and “nominal” members would only tarnish the party’s image.”
Asked by reporters to comment on Wan’s application, Wu said that he had not heard of Wan, and he urged the media not to “get him involved.”
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