Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) formally announced his candidacy yesterday as registration opened for the party chairmanship election.
Registration will close on Friday and the election is scheduled for May 18.
Chai yesterday said that he wanted to stand in the contest because he felt it was his unshirkable duty to do something for the party, which he said has been facing an unparalleled crisis since it lost the legislative election in January and the presidential election last month.
PHOTO: LU CHUN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
“I promise, if given a chance, to do my very best to salvage the party and the lost trust of the people of Taiwan,” he said.
If elected, Chai said, he would make efforts to keep the 5.4 million people who voted for the DPP in the presidential election and hoped to obtain 1 million more to resume power.
Referring to the talk about generational change, the 73-year-old Chai said that he agreed with the notion of transferring power to the younger generation and that, if elected, he would propose to amend the party charter to establish one or two vice chairpersons.
“The party is in a dire situation, far worse than it was some 20 years ago during the dangwai [outside the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)] period,” Chai said. “I cannot solve all the party’s problems alone, so I am thinking of jointly leading the party with the vice chairpersons, who must not only have experience, but also have Taiwan-centered consciousness.”
Chai also addressed the much-criticized problem of “shell party members” or nominal party members who are members recruited by a faction boss or politician with a view to increasing their influence in the party.
Nominal members have little or no interest in the party themselves, but present a vote bank on which the politically ambitious can draw.
Chai said that he would like to see these members transform themselves from mere voting machines to individuals devoting themselves to community or charity work. To that end, he would propose to train “democracy volunteers” at the party’s Democracy Academy.
Chai also vowed to put the party’s platform into practice, in particular building a new republic.
Chai said vice president-elect Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) had pushed Taiwan into peril by attending the Boao Forum for Asia in China, as had president-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) by recognizing the so-called “1992 consensus,” in which the KMT said that Taipei and Beijing agreed that there is “one China” and each side has its own interpretation of its meaning.
Any negotiation with China would be meaningless if the negotiation was conducted under the framework of “one China,” Chai said, adding that the Ma administration should request that Beijing respect the existence of the Republic of China rather than ask it to relinquish its sovereignty.
If elected, Chai said, he would produce effective measures to counter Ma’s policies, but he did not elaborate what the measures would be.
While Chai said he would stand in the contest until the very end, he left room for negotiation. DPP Chairman Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) has said that he is not against using negotiations to find a new party leader and he would negotiate with interested parties.
The party would only have an election if the negotiations failed, he said.
Meanwhile, the DPP said yesterday that Yao Jen-to (姚人多), an assistant professor of sociology at National Tsinghua University, would serve as a special assistant to Hsieh, while Taipei City Councilwoman Yen Sheng-kuan (顏聖冠) would head the DPP’s Culture and Information Department.
The party said the two would offer their services free of charge.
SELF-RELIANCE: Taiwan would struggle to receive aid in the event of an invasion, so it must prepare to ‘hold its own’ for the first 70 days of a war, a defense expert said Taiwan should strengthen infrastructure, stock up on reserves and step up efforts to encourage Taiwanese to fight against an enemy, legislators and experts said on Tuesday last week. The comments sought to summarize what the nation should learn from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has exceeded 300 days, since Feb. 24 last year. Institute of National Defense and Security Research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) said that the war in Ukraine highlighted the importance of being ready for war. Taiwan’s development of an “asymmetrical warfare” doctrine and extending mandatory conscription to one year is a good start to preparation of defense against a
The Central Epidemic Command Center yesterday said it would delay the lifting of the indoor mask mandate, citing public health considerations and ongoing discussions on how the policy should be implemented. Earlier this week, Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the CECC’s spokesman, said officials from several ministries were working on the policy and an announcement would be made yesterday. However, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝), who heads the CECC, yesterday said that the policy was still under review. Wang said its implementation would be “delayed slightly” due to three main factors. First, the center
END OF SERIES: As the first generation of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines are set to expire, the CECC would no longer offer them to children younger than four years old The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported the nation’s first case of a person infected with the Omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant of SARS-CoV-2. The Taiwanese man in his 20s arrived from Canada on Jan. 22, said Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), who is deputy head of the CECC’s medical response division. He tested positive after reporting having a runny nose and muscle soreness while in airport quarantine, Lo said. The XBB.1.5 subvariant is the dominant strain in the US, but there is no evidence to suggest that it causes more severe illness than other Omicron subvariants, he said,
NORMALIZING TIES: The delegation led by the KMT’s Johnny Chiang is to meet with British lawmakers, think tanks and business groups to discuss developments A legislative delegation led by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) arrived in the UK yesterday to rally support for Taiwan’s bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Chiang heads the Legislative Yuan’s Taiwan-UK Interparliamentary Amity Association. The delegation also includes KMT legislators Ma Wen-chun (馬文君), Wen Yu-hsia (溫玉霞), Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷), Sandy Yu (游毓蘭) and Wu I-ding (吳怡玎). The group is to meet with British lawmakers Alicia Kearns, who chairs the British House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee; Tobias Ellwood, who chairs the House Defence Select Committee; and Bob Stewart, who cochairs the