The format of the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) election primary moved back to the heart of discussions after DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) announced a reform stripping more than 60,000 members of their voting rights, yet most members have been unconvinced about a proposal for an open primary mechanism.
Perplexed by recent controversies surrounding member recruitment involving mass applications and reputed gangsters, Su announced a reform last week that bars members who have belonged for less than a year from voting in party elections.
The new mechanism should be able to avoid interference with intraparty politics by taking advantage of nominal member breeding, a perennial headache for the party, Su said.
However, some members have questioned the initiative, saying that the measure keeps new members from exercising their rights to determine party affairs, and prevents Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) or independent local politicians from joining the DPP because they would be ineligible to be listed on primary ballots.
DPP Legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) renewed his call for an overhaul of the primary format, which adopts the spirit of the US open primary system by asking voters to register before a party primary.
Chen and other DPP lawmakers planned to propose amending the Political Party Act (政黨法) and the DPP’s internal regulations to legalize government-organized party primaries.
The proposed format was used to determine the DPP’s presidential candidate in the presidential election in 1996, but has not been implemented since.
Former DPP chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) did not reveal her preference when asked about it yesterday, but said “it is imperative for Taiwan to develop a party primary mechanism based on its unique political environment,” as transplanting a foreign system would not necessarily be the best option.
“Reforming the primary system, which has been discussed repeatedly in the party without consensus, requires legislation and inter-party consensus,” Tsai said.
The KMT has never supported changing the primary format.
Former premier Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃) supported the proposed initiative, saying that it would be “the best way to prevent the primary being kidnapped or dominated by party factions.”
Some have also suggested that the DPP charts its own course by unilaterally adopting the open primary format, without seeking collaboration from the KMT.
While the open primary format would further enforce democratic values, which is good for Taiwanese politics in the long term, “there is no guarantee that the KMT will not try to mobilize people and interfere with the DPP primary,” DPP Legislator Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) and New Taipei City (新北市) office director Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) said.
Hsiao and Lo, who deal with voters, party members and local communities on a daily basis, said an open primary would sacrifice party members’ rights, a move which is not likely to benefit the party in the long run.
Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明), an assistant professor at Soochow University, said the DPP could keep its “one-year rule” on voting rights intact, but should allow new members to be listed as candidates in party primaries so that the DPP’s local development would not be jeopardized by the rule.
The proposal has not been formally discussed within the party, DPP spokesperson Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said, adding that the party’s nomination process would be determined by the Central Executive Committee and party congress, which is scheduled to be held at the end of this month.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS