Instead of hating the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), help change it, KMT Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said, as he urged young people to join efforts to reform the party.
As the nation marked Youth Day on Sunday, Chiang said in a Facebook post that he wanted to remind people that “the KMT used to be very young.”
Now, when people think of the KMT, they equate it with older people, he wrote.
Photo: Shih Hsiao-kuang, Taipei Times
“Even if [the KMT] is a 100-year-old party, it must maintain a young mentality, and understand what young people want and what they want the KMT to do,” Chiang wrote. “Hate the KMT? Do not make a decision too quickly. Instead of hating the KMT, help change the KMT.”
“Instead of going home and arguing with your elders, come to the KMT and chat with the chairman,” he wrote.
Chiang said that he would follow through on a proposal he made during his campaign for the party chair earlier this year — to create an advisory group comprised of young KMT members.
He plans to form a “social innovation youth committee,” he said.
Chiang plans to preside over the committee, which would meet regularly and serve as the party’s “catalyst for communication with society,” he said.
The committee would target issues young people care about and “explore areas never touched [by the party] before,” he wrote, adding that the committee would be the source of the party’s “new energy for change.”
Representatives from environmental groups, the education, agriculture and new media sectors, and entrepreneurs, among others, would be invited to join the committee, Chiang wrote.
The party has also reserved five to 10 spots on the committee for members of the public to nominate themselves or other worthy candidates, he wrote.
Those who wish to join the new committee have until Sunday to apply, he added.
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