Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) yesterday rejected the idea that the party ignore its primary system and draft a candidate to run in next year’s presidential election, party spokesperson Lin Yi-hua (林奕華) said.
KMT Legislator Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) and other KMT Central Standing Committee members suggested during yesterday’s weekly meeting that the party rely solely on polls to decide whom to nominate for the January election.
Lu suggested that Chu, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), Vice President Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) and Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) be listed as possible candidates and that the party’s ticket be based on who places first and second in the polls.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
The KMT’s primary rules stipulate that the party can only draft a candidate when the hopefuls who have met the signature collection threshold fail to be backed by more than 30 percent of respondents in a poll comparing them with the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential nominee, held as the second stage of the primary process.
Hung was one of only two party members who registered for the presidential primary.
However, she was the only one whose valid signature collection met the required threshold.
At present, Hung would be the only KMT member pitted against DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), her party’s presidential candidate.
Lu said he was worried that such a poll could be rigged by Tsai’s supporters because they would like to see Hung win the KMT nomination.
Another suggestion was made that if such a poll is to be conducted, pan-green camp supporters should be excluded, Lin said.
Lu’s proposal was not accepted by the committee after Chu urged the party to unite behind its primary system and not to take a pre-determined stance, Lin said.
According to a survey by the Chinese-language China Times newspaper, 34 percent of the respondents said they would vote for Hung in January’s election.
Hung said that although she did not think it would be easy to meet the requirement of winning more than 30 percent support in a head-to-head poll against Tsai, the suggestions by the Central Standing Committee members seeking alternative candidates would “spur” her efforts to win support from the public, especially those voters in southern Taiwan.
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
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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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