A political monitoring group yesterday proposed holding government-funded primaries for future elections, including those for party leaders.
As the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is scheduled to elect a new party chief on May 18, the Alliance of Intellectuals Supervising the Democratic Progressive Party yesterday said that the DPP chairman election would play an important role in the party’s revival in the wake of recent election setbacks.
Southern Taiwan Society president Cheng Cheng-iok (鄭正煜) said that he hoped the DPP chairman election would be a competition of ideals and that all factional members would refrain from meddling in the contest.
He said he would like to see the candidates present a clear positions on the issues of national identity, solutions for the party, its future direction, disciplinary problems and the decision-making system.
Taiwan Association of University Professors chairman Tsay Ting-kuei (蔡丁貴) said that the alliance was planning to invite DPP chairman candidates to present their platforms on May 10, even if the party decides to select its leader via negotiation.
The election is scheduled for May 18 and there are three candidates. They are former vice premier Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), DPP Legislator Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) and former senior presidential adviser Koo Kwang-ming (辜寬敏).
Taiwan Society vice president Winston Yu (余文儀) proposed holding government-funded primaries for party leaders to help curb the problems of vote-buying, factional infighting and nominal party members.
While DPP members have engaged in heated debate over whether to abolish the “blue-excluding opinion polls,” Yu said government-funded polls would not have any such problem.
The “blue-excluding opinion polls” were used in the DPP primaries to help determine party nominees for the Jan. 12 legislative elections. They attempted to identify and exclude supporters of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and prevent them from participating for fear they would manipulate the results in the KMT’s favor.
Following the DPP’s drubbing in the legislative elections, however, many party members criticized the polls for politically labeling respondents and encouraging the nomination of more extreme candidates.
Unless the legislature agrees to amend the law and to authorize government-funded primaries, Yu said the DPP should adopt the format it used in the 1994 chairman election in which DPP members and non-members were allowed to participate.
Ku Chung-hwa (顧忠華), an executive member of the Taipei Society, said that government-funded primaries would help political parties cut down on election costs and steer clear from paying back favors to financial donors.
Ku said chairman elections of political parties are a public affair and that the government is duty-bound to help the democratization of political parties because it helps the country’s overall democratic development.
Yu agreed, saying that the measure would benefit all parties, not just the DPP.
Meanwhile, commenting on the reform effort disputes, Chairman Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) said that the media should stop portraying the remarks made by certain individuals as those made by certain alliances or the party and that the person who made the remark should be responsible for his or her words.
Hsieh made the remarks in response to criticism lodged by former DPP legislators Lee Wen-chung (李文忠) and Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康) against former DPP chairman Yu Shyi-kun.
Lee said Yu should apologize for adopting the “blue-excluding opinion polls” after Yu refused to accept suggestions that the controversial polling method be abolished at the end of a meeting held on Saturday to review the DPP’s latest election setback.
Yu argued that “the DPP might as well give up conducting opinion polls, if those excluding blue-leaning voters were to be eliminated.”
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