Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) yesterday said that exchanging votes in the election of KMT Central Committee members is allowable, as long as bribery is not involved.
Wu made the remark before casting his votes in yesterday’s internal party election for 210 Central Committee members among 358 nominated party representatives.
As each of the 2,046 representatives gets to cast 105 votes, it is only natural that some candidates who are friends had formed alliances to vote for each other, Wu said.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
For instance, if two groups of 30 and 40 representatives formed an alliance to vote for each other, it would take up 70 of the votes each members is allowed to cast, leaving them with 35 votes for candidates outside the alliance, Wu said.
He drew a parallel between the election and the election of corporate board members, who must hold enough shares to run for a seat.
In response to media queries for comment on reports that the election had been “corrupted,” Wu said he would not call it corrupted, adding that he had not received reports of bribery ahead of the election.
“I ordered that money must not be involved. It it were, it would have tainted the election and that would definitely not have been allowed,” he said.
Central Committee members are eligible to run for the party’s Central Standing Committee as well as attend the annual Central Committee conference.
Some KMT members have advocated for the post to be annulled due to its poor functionality and bribery scandals surrounding “vote exchanging alliances.”
In related news, Wu on Friday said that people calling for the reduction in the number of ancient Chinese passages in Chinese literature textbooks are “completely wrong” and urged the Democratic Progressive Party administration to not make a blunder by giving in to them.
More than 100 authors have issued a joint statement through the Association for Taiwan Literature calling for the number of classical Chinese literature pieces in school curricula to be significantly reduced to give importance to Taiwanese literature.
The government should not tamper with high-school geography and history curricula, he said, adding that such actions would deny the Republic of China’s existence.
He was referring to the Ministry of Education’s curriculum guidelines review committee’s ongoing effort to reduce the weighting assigned to Chinese geography and history after the guidelines sparked massive students-led protests in 2015 over their perceived “China-centric” perspective.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
TRADE-OFF: Beijing seeks to trade a bowl of tempura for a Chinese delicacy, an official said, while another said its promises were attempts to interfere in the polls The government must carefully consider the national security implications of building a bridge connecting Kinmen County and Xiamen, China, the Public Construction Commission (PCC) said yesterday. PCC Commissioner Derek Chen (陳金德), who is also a minister without portfolio, made the remarks in a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, after Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Hsu Fu-kuei (徐富癸) asked about China’s proposal of new infrastructure projects to further connect Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties with Xiamen. China unveiled the bridge plan, along with nine other policies for Taiwan, on Sunday, the last day of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun’s (鄭麗文) visit
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