Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Central Policy Committee director Alex Tsai (蔡正元) yesterday announced that the party’s chairperson election would be moved to May 20 in order to conform with the party charter.
Tsai made the announcement after a working conference at KMT headquarters yesterday, during which the schedule for the election of four types of KMT officials and a plan to end the party’s Huang Fu-hsing (黃復興) military veterans’ branch’s separate election of party representatives were passed.
Both of the proposals are to be referred to the KMT Central Standing Committee for approval tomorrow.
According to the KMT’s preliminary schedule, the chairperson and representative elections are scheduled for May 20 next year, followed by the KMT’s Central Committee and the Central Standing Committee elections on July 8 and July 29 respectively.
Elected officials are set to be sworn in on Aug. 20 next year at a KMT national congress, Tsai said.
Tsai said the decision to move next year’s party chairperson election forward by two months is in accord with Article 17 of the KMT party charter that stipulates a chairperson election should be held three months before a national congress planned for the year the current post-holder’s term is to expire.
“In 2005, a chairperson election was held on July 16 and the winner was inaugurated at a national congress on Aug. 19, which ran against the party charter. While elections in 2013 conformed with the party charter, because the winner in the July 20 chairperson race was sworn in at a national congress on Nov. 10, the previous post-holder occupied the position longer than the statutory four years,” Tsai said.
Tsai said as the term for the first directly elected KMT chairman, Lien Chan (連戰), expired on Aug. 19, 2005, the inauguration date for the successor of KMT Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) ought to take place on Aug. 20 and the election for the position should therefore be May 20.
Hung was elected party chairwoman on Mar. 26 to serve the remaining term of sixth KMT chairman, Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who won re-election on July 20, 2013 before stepping down on Dec. 3, 2014, to take political responsibility for the KMT’s dramatic defeat in the nine-in-one local elections that year.
Ma was succeeded by New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) on Jan. 19 last year, who resigned a year later on Jan. 16 after losing the presidential race to the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
As for what he called “a major election reform” involving the KMT’s pro-China Huang Fu-hsing branch, Alex Tsai said in the past, the branch was allowed to elect a certain number of party representatives in a separate election, which resulted in an unequal value of each vote cast by party members.
“From now on, the number of party representatives traditionally elected by the branch will be combined with that chosen by party members,” Alex Tsai said.
According to a source close to the KMT, who requested anonymity, the KMT has 1,147 party representatives, 102 of whom are elected by the military branch’s about 190,000 members.
Additional reporting by Lin Liang-sheng
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is aware that Beijing’s treatment of Hong Kong has weakened any possible sentiment for a “one country, two systems” arrangement for Taiwan, and has instructed Chinese Communist Party (CCP) politburo member Wang Huning (王滬寧) to develop new ways of defining cross-strait relations, Japanese news magazine Nikkei Asia reported on Thursday. A former professor of international politics at Fu Dan University, Wang is expected to develop a dialogue that could serve as the foundation for cross-strait unification, and Xi plans to use the framework to support a fourth term as president, Nikkei Asia quoted an anonymous source
LUCKY DATE: The man picked the 10th ‘Super Red Envelope’ in a lottery store in Taoyuan’s Jhongli because he broke up with his girlfriend on Jan. 10 A man who recently broke up with his girlfriend won a NT$1 million (US$32,929) prize in the “NT$20 million Super Red Envelope” lottery after picking a card based on the date of their breakup, Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The man, in his 20s, bought the 10th ticket at a lottery store in Taoyuan’s Jhongli District (中壢), because he broke up with his girlfriend on Jan. 10, the store owner told the lottery company. The “Super Red Envelope” lottery was a limited offering by the company during the Lunar New Year holiday, which ended yesterday. The cards, which cost NT$2,000 each, came with
TOURISM BOOST: The transportation system could help attract more visitors to the area, as the line is to connect multiple cultural sites, a city councilor said Residents in New Taipei City’s Ankeng District (安坑) said the local light rail system might have a positive influence, but raised questions about its practicality. The Ankeng light rail system, which is to commence operations after the Lunar New Year holiday, would cut travel time for commuters from Ankeng to downtown Taipei or New Taipei City by 15 to 20 minutes, the city government said. According to the initial plan, there would be one train every 15 minutes during peak time and additional interval trains would run between the densely populated Ankang Station (安康) and Shisizhang Station (十 四張). To encourage people to
CHAMPION TREES: The team used light detection and ranging imaging to locate the tree, and found that it measured a height of 84.1m and had a girth of 8.5m A team committed to finding the tallest trees in the nation yesterday said that an 84.1m tall Taiwania cryptomerioides tree had been named the tallest tree in Taiwan and East Asia. The Taiwan Champion Trees, a team consisting of researchers from the Council of Agriculture’s Taiwan Forestry Research Institute and National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), in June last year used light detection and ranging (LiDAR) imaging to find the giant tree, numbered 55214, upstream of the Daan River (大安溪). A 20-member expedition team led by Rebecca Hsu (徐嘉君), an assistant researcher at the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute, set out to find the
RSS