Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
His rival, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), had conceded defeat even before the tallies were finished.
"Candidate Ma Ying-jeou garnered 72.4 percent of vote share, or 375,056 votes, against Wang Jin-pyng's 27.6 percent, or 143,268 votes," KMT Secretary-General Lin Feng-cheng (
PHOTO: AFP
Even before all the ballots were counted, Ma held a press conference to declare his victory and promise to put his campaign promises into practice.
He vowed to continue reform efforts so the party could win the 2008 election, and he reiterated his opposition to both Taiwan independence and China's "one country, two systems" model of government used in Hong Kong and Macau.
Ma invited Wang to continue to serve as one of the party's five vice chairmen and he promised to create an honorary chairman position for outgoing Chairman Lien Chan (
"I'm well aware of Wang's advantages and will make good use of his experience and expertise to oversee the government and compete with it," Ma said.
"I cannot do it without him," Ma said.
He also expressed his wish to mend fences with Wang, saying that both should put things behind them and look ahead since the election is over.
Wang, however, was evasive about how he would respond to Ma's offer.
"I'm willing to follow Chairman Lien's footsteps to serve as a lifetime KMT volunteer," he said.
When asked whether he would help Ma once he takes office, Wang said that "there is no doubt that I will fully dedicate myself to the party."
While many party members have expressed a wish to see cooperation between Wang and Ma in the run-up to the 2008 election, Wang simply expressed his appreciation for their goodwill.
He also thanked Lien, who reportedly voted for him yesterday morning before leaving for Tokyo en route to Washington, where he is scheduled to deliver a speech at a leaders' meeting of the International Democrat Union.
Aided by the sunny weather, more than half a million party members nationwide cast ballots -- a turnout rate of 50.17 percent, while 12,093 members living overseas voted, for a turnout rate of 73.91 percent.
The turnout rates in the last KMT chairmanship election in 2001 was 57.89 percent domestically and 72.7 percent for overseas members.
Lien won with more than 97 percent of the votes in that poll.
Yesterday in Yunlin County, where 6,818 KMT members' right to vote was restored on Thursday, Ma won 14,824 ballots, or 60.75 percent of the county's total votes.
The Ma camp had claimed that there were about 8,000 party members in the country whose votes could be misused to support Wang.
The KMT also elected a total of 1,105 party delegates yesterday, including 985 regional, 90 overseas and 30 mainland representatives.
Delegates serve four-year terms that run concurrently with the chairman's term.
Among the victorious 985 regional delegates were family members of several senior party members, including Lien's son, Sean Lien (連勝文); Wu Po-hsiung's (吳伯雄) son, Wu Chih-kang (吳志剛); Ma's oldest sister Ma Yi-nan (馬以南) and Taipei Deputy Mayor Yeh Chin-chuan (葉金川).
The party will hold a national congress on Aug. 19, during which Ma will take his oath of office and a total of 210 delegates will be elected to the Central Committee from 420 candidates.
In the meantime, Ma said he planned to visit opposition leaders, including People First Party (PFP) Chiarman James Soong and New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming (郁慕明), to discuss the possibility of cooperation in the year-end election.
When asked by reporters yesterday if he would help Ma negotiate with KMT and other pan-blue camp members over the nomination process for those elections, Wang said that he has had no time to think about that poll.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS