In response to former president Lee Teng-hui’s (李登輝) remark that Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) will be the next Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman, KMT presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) yesterday said that such a decision is not Lee’s to make.
At the launch for his new book New Taiwan Position (新台灣主張) on Tuesday, Lee said that Wang is the “representative of the local faction [as opposed to those with Mainlander backgrounds] in the KMT who is most widely respected [within the party], and he should decide what role he plays in staying in the party. If he becomes the KMT’s chairman, which is possible, then the KMT will naturally become the Taiwanese Nationalist Party.”
Lee was responding to recent speculation that the KMT might revise rules stipulating that no one can be renominated as its legislator-at-large twice so that Wang can remain in the legislature.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
The former president also said that the KMT cannot be allowed to fall apart, as it and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) could alternate “to build a good government in Taiwan.”
Who serves as the KMT chairman is not a decision for one person to make, let alone Lee, as the party has its own procedures to make that determination, Hung said, adding that KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) is doing a great job.
“There was a rumor about replacing me as presidential candidate; is there going to be another one about Wang replacing Chu as KMT chairman now?” she said.
When asked about the results of a recent poll published by the Chinese-language Apple Daily, which showed that People First Party presidential candidate James Soong (宋楚瑜), with 14.6 percent of support, was trailing Hung’s 28.49 percent, Hung said that she would continue to make strides in her campaign, but added that holding a larger lead over Soong is not her goal, defeating Tsai is.
Hung yesterday also attended an economic and financial forum to propose her solutions to Taiwan’s four major economic predicaments: a failure to upgrade the nation’s manufacturing industry; a failure to adapt the nation’s economic structure to changing times; a failure to understand the meaning and importance of openness; and a failure to take small and medium-sized enterprises seriously.
Hung called for “three leads” — innovation, the younger generation and small and medium-sized enterprises — to drive the economy, adding that openness and fair competition are also vital for a new type of economy.
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