A retired major general who coaches President Chen Shui-bian (
Among those joining the party is Chen's son in law, Chao Chien-ming (
Kang Ping (康萍) and Cheng Yu-chuan (鄭玉娟) followed their husbands, Presidential Office Secretary-General Chen Shih-meng (陳師孟) and Twu Shiing-jer (涂醒哲), director-general of the health department's Center for Disease Control, into the party yesterday. Cheng is professor of public health at National Taiwan University (NTU).
Hung Wan-sheng (洪萬生), a mathematics professor at National Taiwan Normal University, and his wife, Lin Fang-mei (林芳玫), chairwoman of the National Youth Commission, joined together.
The new members include 18 politicians, six academics, 11 medical professionals, six from social circles, five from business and five from the high-tech sector.
Ethnically, 43 are Taiwanese, two are Hakka and six have mainland-Chinese origins.
Yesterday's ceremony marked the largest mass entry of elite into the DPP since the party was founded in 1986. The party has approximately 400,000 members.
Chen, who became DPP chairman on July 21, presided over the ceremony.
Lou Ke-chun (
His move surprised many as the DPP had stressed that no officials from the police and security departments would be invited for fear of harming the objectivity of these agencies.
But Lou told the reporters not to overreact to his decision because he is retired and had made the decision on his own accord.
Kang Ping, a Chinese professor from NTU, said, "The time was ripe for me to join the DPP."
She said she had long agreed with the DPP's ideology, but her family, who have a mainland-Chinese background, had dissuaded her from being associated with the DPP. She therefore had to wait until Chen had proved himself as a competent state leader before her family dropped their objections, she said.
Chao Chien-ming, an osteopath at NTU Hospital, said, "It would be odd for me not to join the DPP."
But surprisingly, he said it was his colleagues who had persuaded him to join rather than his father in law.
When asked if he had any plans to get further involved in politics, he said, "I would rather dutifully carry out my job for the time being."
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