Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) yesterday reiterated the party’s determination to ensure fairness and objectivity when nominating candidates for next year’s local elections. This was amid growing calls for the party to nominate New Taipei City Deputy Mayor Hou Yu-yi (侯友宜) as the mayoral candidate for New Taipei City, without holding a primary.
Wu made the remarks on the sidelines of a meeting of the KMT’s Central Committee, its first since members were elected in September.
The meeting revolved around three major topics: party reforms and youth participation; solidarity and expansion of the party’s support base; and supervision of the ruling party and a return to power.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
“There are many kinds of [primary polls]. You can poll the entire population, compare and cross-analyze [different surveys] or only poll party members,” Wu said.
While acknowledging that there are calls within the party that it should go ahead and nominate Hou without a primary, Wu said the KMT would take the most well-rounded approach and ensure fairness and objectivity in its nomination process.
Asked whether he was concerned about the possibility of a KMT member defecting from the party and running for the New Taipei City mayoral seat as an independent, Wu said every political party has such concerns.
“But as long as we make sure that our nomination process is just and free of subjective factors, we have done our best,” Wu said.
New Taipei City has two potential candidates for the mayoral election: One is Hou, who reportedly enjoys higher support and is backed by New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫), and the other is former Taipei County commissioner Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋), who is said to be Wu’s preferred candidate.
In his opening report to the Central Committee members, Wu said the party would give a 15 percent boost to the primary survey results of younger aspirants, aged 35 or below, and 10 percent to those aged between 36 and 40 to encourage younger Taiwanese to join the KMT, closing the age gap in the party.
“If a young aspirant is running for the first time, he or she will obtain an additional 10 percent increase. That means a combined boost of up to 25 percent,” Wu said.
The KMT chairman said his plan is to nominate the most talented, loyal and experienced party members to represent the party in the upcoming election.
Meanwhile, committee members also proposed other measures at the meeting in hopes of helping the KMT regain power in 2020, including building a “cyber army” to gain a better understanding of the opinions of mainstream netizens.
There were also proposals calling on KMT lawmakers to resort to physical rather than verbal attacks at the legislature in protest against draft bills that they do not support — impressing voters with the party’s “combatbility.”
Wu said he would forward the suggestions to the KMT’s Central Standing Committee for deliberations and would ask for an update within a month.
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