After announcing late on Wednesday that she was taking a break from the rigors of campaigning, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) was back on Facebook on Thursday, accusing the party of having a “defeatist” attitude.
Hung wrote in a diary-like entry, marking the date and the weather, and talked about a statue of a bodhisattva and its “tranquility and benevolence.”
“I should try to calm down; otherwise, I could not engage in thinking,” she wrote. “Yes, we want to save [those who are] suffering, but how can we do so if we do not have the benevolence and tranquility [of a bodhisattva]? ”
However, it is not easy to have peace of mind “whenever [she] thinks about the predicament that the nation is in,” she wrote.
“It is not that the public does not see the problems, [such as] the [mess] of domestic politics and the prevailing sense of defeatism within the party, but it seems that anxiety, instead of countermeasures, is what all we have. I am deeply apprehensive about this ‘frog slowly being cooked in warm water’ situation. Bodhisattva, can you bestow on me the needed wisdom to attain peace of mind?” she wrote.
Hung has seemingly turned to Facebook as a platform to express her personal thoughts starting on Wednesday, when she posted her decision to temporarily stop her daily campaign activities, stirring speculation that she was planning to give up her candidacy.
Her campaign team rejected the rumors.
According to an anonymous informant who spoke on a CtiTV news show on Thursday night, Hung made the decision to go into “seclusion” after an aide said at a campaign team meeting on Monday that she was no longer an “atypical politician.”
The aide reportedly said that Hung has lately come to “talk like a politician” and turned into a “typical KMT politician.”
The informant said the criticism compelled Hung to reflect on her actions and to seek to find herself. It is also why Hung’s Facebook page has become a more personal reflection of her own thoughts, rather than mere posts of policy announcements and post-event acknowledgements, the person said.
Asked about Hung’s comment about the party’s defeatist attitude, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said that as Hung is now in “seclusion,” people can wait for a full explanation as she promised when she reappears in public.
He added that while there might be differing opinions within the party, he has always stressed the importance of the party standing firm in its beliefs and promoting solidarity.
Chu also rebuffed rumors that Hung has taken a break from campaigning to ask for more resources from party headquarters.
It is “normal” for candidates to have a temporary break for contemplation during a campaign period, he added.
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