The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is to form a task force to review its defeats in Saturday’s presidential and legislative elections, and propose plans to reform the party, KMT deputy spokesman Huang Hsin-hua (黃心華) said yesterday.
Top party officials met for the first time since the elections, and the party’s “major setbacks” were discussed and an agreement reached to establish a task force to thoroughly review the party’s performance and propose reform plans, Huang said.
They also discussed the resignation of KMT Chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) and executive-level members, he said, adding: “Once the Central Standing Committee approves of it, a chairperson by-election will be held immediately.”
Photo: Lai Hsiao-tung, Taipei
To ensure the operation of the party during the transitional period, all management-level members have been urged to continue carrying out their duties, he said.
Among those at the meeting were KMT Vice Chairman Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權), Organizational Development Committee director Tu Chien-teh (杜建德), Culture and Communications Committee director-general Cheng Mei-hua (程美華), Administration and Management Committee director Chiu Da-chan (邱大展), Disciplinary Committee director Wei Ping-cheng (魏平政) and other executive-level members.
Wu on Saturday night said that he and all executive-level members involved in the elections would tender their resignation to the Central Standing Committee tomorrow to take responsibility for the defeats.
The committee is expected to approve Wu’s resignation, but no one has yet publicly committed to running to succeed him.
KMT Tainan chapter head Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) had previously said that he would run for chairmanship after the elections, but he appears to be rethinking the move.
Party members have floated the names of Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), and KMT legislators Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) and Johnny Chiang (江啟臣).
Asked by reporters in Kaohsiung yesterday if he was interested, Han said he “has absolutely no plan” to run for chairman.
In an interview with China Review News Agency published yesterday, Johnny Chiang denied considering the idea, saying his priority is to stabilize things on the legislative front for the KMT.
Hou and Chiang Wan-an were vague when pressed on Sunday.
As New Taipei City mayor, he is preoccupied with his job of running the city, Hou said, adding yesterday that KMT members should calm down and ponder the party’s issues and its next steps.
Chiang Wan-an said that the KMT must thoroughly review its losses and that its problems “would not be solved in a short time.”
Additional reporting by Tsai Wen-chu and CNA
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS