The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Central Standing Committee yesterday announced that it would maintain its current method of choosing a presidential candidate for next year’s election.
A party think tank presented the committee with an analysis of various methods for choosing a candidate and suggested that the will of party members be respected.
The think tank suggested that the party make a selection based on a 50-50 or 70-30 weighting of party-conducted public polls and party member votes.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
The majority of committee members favored the 70-30 method, which is the current system, the KMT said in a statement.
Departing from its custom of having a KMT spokesperson announce the committee’s decision, KMT Chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) attended the post-meeting news conference.
Wu said he supported maintaining the current system and should the party wish to change how the primary is held, it should be made in the following election — not the upcoming one.
“I suggest that we maintain the dignity of the current system,” Wu said.
Asked whether the decision was made to thwart former New Taipei City mayor Eric Chu’s (朱立倫) bid for the party’s nomination, Wu said the KMT did not entertain “any considerations that do not serve the greater good.”
As for KMT member Chou Hsi-wei’s (周錫瑋) suggestion for a two-stage primary, Wu said that the party’s system was “the system.”
Chou on Tuesday declared his intention to run in the primary.
“We will not repeat the mistake of finding another candidate after one candidate has already been confirmed by the system,” Wu said.
He was referring to the party upheaval in 2015, when then-KMT chairperson Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) won the party’s primary for the 2016 election only to be replaced later by Chu.
“If we only wanted to win the election, there would be institutionalized procedures that would allow us to attain that goal in a natural manner,” Wu said.
According to sources within the party, the Central Standing Committee’s decision means that the Organizational Development Committee would not include the subclause “Should half of all participants agree, the nomination could be based entirely on public poll results” in the party’s Regulations for Nominating KMT Members Entering Public Office Elections (中國國民黨黨員參加公職人員選舉提名辦法).
The subclause was included in the party’s regulations during the KMT nomination process in 2015.
Chu’s office issued a statement saying it respected the party’s decision.
The office also called on the party to finalize the schedule for the primary to meet public expectations.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai