Despite former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) announcing earlier this month that she intended to run for a legislative seat in Tainan, a source from within the party yesterday said that unless Hung keeps quiet about her “one China, same interpretation” stance, the likelihood of her securing the party’s nomination is “close to nil.”
Hung’s “same interpretation” stance was perceived as the reason for the KMT rescinding her nomination and replacing her with then-New Taipei City mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) as its presidential candidate in the 2014 presidential election.
The sixth electoral district is a key race for the KMT, whether Hung or someone else ends up being the candidate, so the bottom line is that the party must nominate the person who will best serve the long-term interests of the party, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
The candidate must be willing to cultivate long-term grassroots support, meaning that they should be willing to join the next Tainan city councilor race after a loss in next year’s legislative election, the source said.
An ambitious candidate who fulfills those conditions would be picked over anyone else, the source said, adding that the party would then seek the support of Hung, who said she would respect any decision made by the party.
“If such a candidate doesn’t exist, the party would consider nominating Hung,” the source said.
Asked if KMT supporters are worried that Hung’s “same interpretation” stance would make the campaign even bleaker for the KMT, the source said that they were concerned, adding that the party’s Tainan chapter would seek to communicate with the former party chairwoman.
Chapter chairman Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) yesterday said that he has given up on the idea of communicating with Hung, as trying to convince her to keep quiet about her stance would likely not work.
As a legislative hopeful, Hung’s negatives outweigh her positives, due largely to her cross-strait stance, Hsieh said.
If Hung secures the nomination and continues to tout her stance, the election for the seat would become too unpredictable, something that is deeply concerning to the party, he said.
Hsieh said that he identified three ideal candidates for the seat, one of whom is high-profile, like Hung.
Since Hung announced her bid, some initial hopefuls have planned to withdraw, while others have said they would not give in to her without a fight, Hsieh said. “That creates a predicament for me and [KMT Chairman] Wu Den-yih (吳敦義).”
Wu at a recent meeting of the KMT’s Central Standing Committee said that no party members should propagate the “one China, same interpretation” stance.
“If anyone fails to support the party’s position, that person is not qualified to be a KMT member,” Wu said.
Hsieh said that he used to support Hung, but that her cross-strait stance is not accepted by most people over the short-term and would be “difficult to sell during an election campaign.”
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching