The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Youth League yesterday called on the party to postpone its chairperson by-election.
Former KMT chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) last month resigned after the party’s defeats in the Jan. 11 elections.
The KMT should put off the election and help with prevention efforts for the 2019 novel coronavirus, KMT Central Review Committee member Chang Ya-ping (張雅屏) told a news conference outside KMT headquarters in Taipei.
Photo: Shih Hsiao-kuang, Taipei Times
Efforts surrounding a petition to recall Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) should also be put on hold in the interest of cooperating on disease prevention, he said.
Chang had expressed interest in running in the by-election, but later decided not to.
Former KMT Youth League secretary-general Lee Zheng-hao (李正皓) said he doubted whether either of the two candidates registered for the by-election — former KMT vice chairman Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), a former Taipei mayor, and KMT Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) — would arouse public interest.
The two candidates also did not wish to touch upon sensitive topics, Lee added.
Although the KMT has said it is not pro-China, it has been unwilling to deal with controversial legislator-at-large-elect Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷), a retired army lieutenant general, or the “image associated with Han Kuo-yu,” he said.
The KMT should expel Wu Sz-huai and not replace him; critically examine Han’s public image and have him face the recall petition on his own; and critically examine the party’s “reactionary culture” and apologize to members that it had expelled or punished for criticizing it, Lee said.
An incoming chairperson would only hold the post for one year and two months, so it would be more helpful to reform the party as a whole rather than elect a new chairperson, Lee said.
Former KMT Youth League head Lin Chia-hsing (林家興) said he felt the by-election was being rushed, and that the KMT was not allowing enough time for candidates to discuss their political views.
The one day planned for discussion — Wednesday next week — would be insufficient for those inside and outside the party to understand the candidates’ positions on party reform issues, Lin said.
The league was attempting to address this problem by holding a mock debate session at the news conference and inviting former high-level party members, party workers and assistants to participate in it, he said.
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
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
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