The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is to discipline three Irrigation and Water Conservancy Association heads over their public support for a plan to nationalize the associations, which is against the party line, a party source said on Sunday.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) on Wednesday last week passed amendments to the Organic Regulations for Irrigation and Water Conservancy Associations (農田水利會組織通則) amid a KMT boycott.
The amendments abolish direct elections for association heads and mandates the government to fill the positions by appointments.
On Tuesday last week, Hsieh Fu-hung (謝福弘) of Miaoli, Lin Keng-hsin (林庚辛) of Nantou and Yang Ming-feng (楊明風) of Chiayi-Tainan voiced their support for the proposal by speaking at a news conference called by the DPP caucus.
Their public support of the amendments was deemed embarrassing to the KMT, as KMT Chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) was at the time scrambling local party chapters and the pro-KMT associations to oppose the amendments.
The KMT is this week to initiate disciplinary hearings against the three association heads at local party chapters, the source said.
The three are to be accused of “contradicting the ideals, charter, platform, policy or resolutions of the party,” which carry the minimum penalty of suspension of party membership, the source said.
The maximum penalty is expulsion from the KMT, the source said, adding that such a measure would need to be ratified by the KMT Central Standing Committee tomorrow.
Yang has deviated from the party’s position and the KMT must treat the issue with an attitude that will be conducive for maintaining party cohesion, KMT Tainan City Councilor Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介), who is also the city’s chapter convener, said on Sunday.
“Yang called a news conference to support the government’s appointment of irrigation and water conservancy association heads, and put himself on a collision course with the party’s ideals and policies. Yang could have been decisive about it and quit the party himself,” Hsieh said.
DPP Legislator Liu Chao-hao (劉櫂豪) criticized the KMT’s move, saying the “the incident shows that the KMT cannot see past partisanship when debating policies. Its path will get ever more narrow.”
Yang told the news conference that water is not blue or green, but clear, Liu said, adding that the KMT’s disciplinary action demonstrates “a tendency to self-belittle.”
The KMT in 1993 supported a proposal to reform the associations along the lines of the DPP’s current policy and it is saddening that the KMT would punish its members over the issue, Liu said.
The DDP is only doing what the KMT lacked the political will to do, he added.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires