The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus criticized the Tai-wan Solidarity Union (TSU) yesterday for rejecting Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng's (
Wang said a few days ago that he would not exclude the possibility of attending TSU candi-dates' campaign activities -- a statement that immediately led to disputes in both the pan-blue and the pan-green camps. The pan-blue camp disapproved of the idea, while the TSU rejected the offer outright. too.
TSU caucus whip Huang Huang Chung-yuan (
"The TSU has only one standard when inviting VIPs to attend its campaign activities, that is, people who identify with and are willing to carry out the ideals of name rectification and new constitution. So the TSU will only support pan-green candidates for the speakership," Huang said.
Huang added that since Wang belonged to a "black-gold" party, the TSU would not consider inviting him to attend the campaign activities.
Meanwhile, Wang kept a low profile yesterday.
"I thank the TSU for their opinions," Wang said, without elaborating.
Wang also expressed firmly his strong intention to seek another term as speaker.
The KMT caucus came out in support of Wang, and said that the TSU was reacting out of a "sour grapes" mentality.
"According my understanding, the speaker was on the passive side. It was some TSU candidates who took the initiative of asking him to attend their campaign activities," KMT caucus whip Huang Teh-fu (
"The speaker enjoys high popularity in the south, but now the TSU finds that the speaker cannot attend their campaign activities because of a clash of schedules. Now they're saying that they won't welcome Wang," Huang Teh-fu said. "They are saying the grapes are sour because they can't eat them."
TSU legislators Lin Chih-lung and Hsu Den-koun denied media reports that they had invited Wang to their campaign activities.
Lin belongs to the same local faction, the Pai faction, in Kao-hsiung as Wang does, and he said it might be the reason that the media thought he had extended an invite to Wang.
Hsu said that he did jokingly ask Wang about appearing for him some time ago.
"A while ago I met the speaker during a sitting. He had just read about my decision to run again in the newspaper, so he asked me, `Are you really going to run?'" Hsu said.
"I jokingly answered, `Yes, so are you going to attend my campaign activities?'" Hsu said.
Hsu is known to have good relations with Wang.
Huang Chung-yuan said that he had spoken with Lin and Hsu and told them not to send invitations to Wang.
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