With the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairperson election scheduled for Saturday next week, information from the party’s Organization and Development Department showed that the number of KMT members entitled to vote has dropped by 8 percent compared with the previous election less than two years ago.
Party sources said the marked decline in its membership is linked to the governing party’s poor performance and its decision to cut the pensions of some civil servants and members of the armed forces.
Compared with the previous KMT chairperson election, which had 380,000 eligible voters, the party now has just 350,000 members entitled to vote, information from the department showed.
The decline is even more striking when compared with the election in 2009, showing a 30 percent drop.
Sources close to the party said that many members had withdrawn or refused to pay their membership fees, therefore relinquishing their membership by default resulting in a considerable loss of grassroots party members.
Under the party’s statutes, a candidate must obtain at least half the total votes to become chairperson, which means New Taipei Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫), the sole contender in the upcoming election, must receive at least 87,500 votes if 50 percent of members take part.
If the election records a 60 percent turnout, he would have to surpass a steeper threshold of at least 105,000 votes.
The sources said Vice President Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), who is the acting KMT chairman, has vowed to help the party make a comeback from its crushing defeat in the Nov. 29 nine-in-one elections by increasing the turnout, as the party is desperately in need of the support of its grassroots members.
Meanwhile, Chu, despite choosing not to set up a campaign office, is sparing no effort to boost the turnout, as civil servants affiliated with the KMT strive to use their influence to attain that goal, the sources said.
Based on statistics produced in the previous two KMT leadership elections — in which President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) won 94.18 and 91.85 percent of votes respectively — Chu, who garnered more than 100,000 signatures from party members before announcing his bid, has a fair chance at securing more votes than Ma did six years ago, the sources said.
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