Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) yesterday echoed a call made by younger KMT members to drop the word “Chinese” from the party’s name.
Lu, who also doubles as a party Central Standing Committee member, said on Facebook that the KMT could have to “scrap the whole thing and restart from nothing” in order to “rise from its ashes.”
“The KMT has seen yet another rout in the Jan. 16 elections after a major defeat in the 2014 nine-in-one local elections. If the KMT does not undertake thorough party reforms and restructuring, and continues to play its ‘court politics,’ [last Saturday’s] avalanche-like defeat would not be the last the KMT would face,” Lu said.
The party mechanism of the 100-year-old party is out of date, failing the expectations of new politics and younger people, he said.
“Even the party name, Zhongguo Kuomintang (中國國民黨), is a contrast to what we are seeing in the society: The rise of local consciousness and the adversity against China,” he said.
“The KMT’s name is not unchangeable. From the Society for Regenerating China (興中會) in 1894, the Tungmenghui (同盟會) in 1905, the Kuomingtang in 1912, the Chunghwa Revolutionary Party in 1914 to finally the Zhongguo Kuomingtang [Chinese Nationalist Party] in 1919, the party has gone through four name changes,” Lu said.
A name change by dropping the word “Chinese” could therefore be a right move for the party to answer the calls for localization, he said.
The legislator also called for accustoming the party’s central beliefs and core values to the new era and the younger generation, streamlining the party’s internal structures, which have been the cause for the party’s “bureaucratic culture,” and reorganizing the Huang Fu-hsing (黃復興) faction, which has been idiosyncratic and a “sub-party” in itself that resists unified directive from the party’s center, by merging it with other party chapters.
“The party also has to establish an institutionalized system for cultivating young members, rather than bowing to the interests of certain factions or families,” Lu said.
Regarding party assets, Lu suggested transferring part of the assets to the state for establishing a “national sovereign fund” that could help Taiwanese businesspeople carry out strategic plans around the globe.
Lu did not seek re-election in the legislative election on Saturday last week, as he had lost the party primary to Cheng Cheng-chien (鄭正鈐), who was defeated by Democratic Progressive Party’s Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) in Hsinchu City.
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