Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
Ma's move was also interpreted as showing the city government's and city council's support for Lien's bid for the party chairmanship, as well as an attempt to garner Lien's support for Ma's efforts to get backing for his own campaign for election as a member of the Central Standing Committee (CSC).
The luncheon was held in the basement restaurant of the city council building just one day before the opening of the KMT's three-day provisional National Congress meeting.
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES.
In today's meeting, the 230 Central Committee (CC) members will elect a new chairman, a post left vacant since its former incumbent, Lee Teng-hui (
Tomorrow, congress delegates are to review and discuss reform initiatives and the party platform while on Monday the CC members will elect the 31 CSC members.
While all party members are eligible to run for CC membership, only CC members may run for CSC membership and elect candidates to the 31 CSC vacancies.
The old system selected CSC members by both election and appointment, on an approximate basis of 51 and 49 percent, respectively. The new system will select CSC members by election only.
Thanking attendees at the luncheon for their efforts during the presidential election campaign and the equanimity with which they shouldered the disappointment of defeat, Lien said: "Let bygones be bygones. We should focus on striving for a comeback."
Lien went on to congratulate Ma on his leadership of city affairs.
"Taipei has made many new breakthroughs over the past few years, most of which were only made possible by the efforts of Mayor Ma and the city councilors. As both a city resident and a party member, I'm particularly proud of it," he said.
Ma reciprocated by acknowledg-ing Lien's efforts in pushing for party reforms.
"Over the past few months Lien has put a lot of time and effort into the matter of party reform. We not only hope that Lien will clinch the chairmanship, we need him to continue to be at the forefront of the party's accomplishments," he said.
Lin Chin-chang (林晉章), a KMT city councilor -- speaking on behalf of KMT Council Speaker Wu Pi-chu (吳碧珠) who was absent for personal reasons, said he hoped future relations between the party and city council would be close.
"When Lee was chairman, we used to meet at least once every six months. We hope communication will be just as frequent in the future," he said.
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck off the southern coast of Mindanao in the Philippines at 7:38am today, prompting the US Tsunami Warning System to issue an alert for neighboring countries, including Taiwan. The system issued a purple alert indicating a "tsunami threat." The potential threat zone includes Taiwan, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Yap and Palau. There were no immediate reports of major damage in the Philippines or Indonesia. The quake struck at a depth of 10km, said the German Research Centre for Geosciences, which had earlier pegged the earthquake at magnitude 8.2. Phivolcs, the Philippine agency, said the quake was magnitude 7 and
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