The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the national campaign headquarters of Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), the party’s presidential candidate, would work together to promote KMT candidates in the Jan. 11 presidential and legislative elections, former New Taipei City mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫), the head of Han’s campaign headquarters, said yesterday.
Chu made the remarks in the morning at KMT headquarters after a 40-minute meeting with KMT Chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義).
At the meeting, Wu accepted an invitation from Chu to serve as one of the campaign headquarters’ honorary heads, along with former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), former KMT chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) and former KMT chairman Wu Po-hsiung (吳伯雄), Chu said.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Wu and Chu agreed that the campaign and KMT headquarters should work as one to promote Han and its legislative candidates, he said.
On the local level, all 15 KMT mayors and county commissioners must lead the party’s election campaigns in their areas and collaborate with the 19 KMT local council heads and local party chapters, he added.
Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) has agreed to head Han’s Taichung campaign headquarters and is expected to formally assume the position on Friday, Chu said.
While New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) has repeatedly avoided questions about whether he is to head Han’s New Taipei City campaign headquarters, Chu said that Hou has already made it clear that all 4 million of the city’s residents should be considered the head of the campaign headquarters, adding that Hou would help the KMT’s candidates.
“Each city or county might have a different approach and we respect the local leader’s decision,” Chu said.
In addition to increasing cooperation with the party, Han’s national campaign headquarters would seek to recruit influential figures outside of politics, such as the leaders of non-governmental organizations, he said.
To improve the party’s support among younger people, the national campaign headquarters would today form a team of KMT city and county councilors aged 20 to 49, he added.
Asked about a rumor that the party is running low on funds for the election, Chu said that “although the KMT is not what it used to be,” party members would do their best to win the elections.
It is estimated that about 10 KMT legislative candidates face a difficult race in their constituencies, Chu said, adding: “We will spend most of our energy and time stabilizing the situation in those areas in the near future.”
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:
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