The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) headquarters yesterday laid out a list of party accomplishments by KMT Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) over the past year in an effort to consolidate support for her re-election campaign, which is to officially begin next week.
Since Hung took over the post in March last year, she has helped secure victory in six of the eight local by-elections, including those for wardens in Pingtung County’s Sandimen (三地門) and Ligang (里港) townships in April and May last year respectively, as well as the Hualien mayoral by-election in August last year, KMT Culture and Communications Committee deputy director Tang Te-ming (唐德明) said.
Under Hung’s leadership, the KMT has brought the Executive Yuan’s Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee to court seven times, of which the party has won four times, Tang said.
Photo: Lee Ya-wen, Taipei Times
Hung was also the first KMT chairperson other than founder Sun Yat-sen (孫中山) to travel throughout the nation and overseas to raise funds for the party, he added.
Hung has to date raised NT$126 million (US$4.2 million) for the party, he said.
Hu Wen-chi (胡文琦), another committee deputy director, said that the strong oversight from the KMT has forced the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to make compromises on many of its “problematic policies.”
Hu said the KMT prevented former Council of Agriculture minister Tsao Chi-hung (曹啟鴻) from allowing US pork imports; forced the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to remove Antonio Chiang (江春男), then the newly designated representative to Singapore, after he was caught drunk driving in August last year; delaying a plan by President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration to allow imports of Japanese food products in the wake of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear meltdown.
On cross-strait affairs, Hu said that Hung fought for the welfare of Taiwanese by meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in November last year, while cementing benefits from China for eight cities and counties governed by independents or KMT members.
The KMT’s efforts were also the reason China did not block Tsai’s envoy to last year’s APEC forum — People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) — from attending the meeting in Peru, Hu said.
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