KMT Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) yesterday said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Vice Chairman Hau Lung-bing’s (郝龍斌) proposal to elect the KMT chairperson based on a public poll and a party member vote is impossible because it is not stipulated in the party’s electoral regulations.
Hau yesterday said that while the KMT has about 600,000 members, its general supporters could be more than 5 million people.
Allowing party supporters to have a say in the chairperson election would provide a more solid foundation for the next party leader, he said.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
Hau proposed a public poll be incorporated with this year’s chairpersons election in addition to a party member vote, with the two results accounting for different percentages toward the final count.
“A public poll is not stated in our regulations and any proposal to make changes to the regulations would have to go through the party congress,” Hung said.
KMT chairperson aspirant former vice president Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said it would be “impossible” to implement Hau’s proposal, citing the “bitter precedent” of the previous presidential election campaign period, during which, he said, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) supporters deliberately chose a candidate “they dearly hoped would represent the KMT” and voted for that person.
“This distorted the purpose of the election,” Wu said, adding that the aim of the election is to have members choose the candidate who can lead the party to power.
Wu was referring to the 2015 KMT presidential primary, in which Hung was the only candidate, but was required to pass a 30 percent threshold that was an average of her approval ratings with her running alone and with her pitted against then DPP-candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文). It was widely speculated that DPP supporters contributed to Hung’s approval rating against Tsai because they considered Hung a weaker competitor compared with other KMT candidates.
Former Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Corp president Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), also a chairperson candidate, said it would be “weird” for a chairperson election to be partly hinged on an opinion poll.
“What qualifies one to choose a party chairperson if the former is not a party member?” Han asked.
Meanwhile, Hung said that the vetting process is to be stepped up after controversy over nominal members and those with a suspected background in organized crime joined the party.
“Some practices should be banned or corrected, such as having many people registering under a the same address, or allowing one person to be commissioned to pay party fees,” Hung said.
Additional Reporting by Tseng Wei-chen and CNA
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