The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) recently relaxed its “black exclusion” clause, allowing party members who were involved in trials before Nov. 22 last year but not convicted in the first trial to run in the party’s primary for year-end city and county chief elections.
The party headquarters informed its local chapters of the regulation yesterday — one day before the first-stage primary registration closes — in a last-minute letter.
A party member who opposed the change criticized the party as giving up its last line of defense that would exclude those found guilty in a first trial from being nominated as a party candidate, a regulation that had been implemented since 2001. The member, who wished to remain anonymous, said the party would only tarnish its own image by relaxing the regulation — a move to prevent aspirants in the party from running as independent candidates.
When asked for comment, KMT spokeswoman Chen Shu-rong (陳淑容) yesterday defended the party’s decision, saying it only handed down an “explanation” of the “black exclusion clause” to local chapters.
Chen said the explanation was not a new regulation, adding that the KMT’s extraordinary Party Congress had resolved that the black exclusion clause should not apply retroactively when the congress amended the KMT’s party constitution on Nov. 22 last year.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday criticized the KMT as compromising its own regulations for the year-end elections.
When approached for comment, Tsai said the KMT had described the DPP as a corrupt political party, but the DPP made stricter and better demands of its members’ integrity than the KMT.
“[The KMT’s] compromise now could mean the beginning of a series of compromises,” she said.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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