The Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Central Standing Committee yesterday adopted a resolution aimed at regulating political party assets, while prohibiting parties to run businesses, specifically targeting the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
“The issue of party assets is not only something concerning the nation’s transitional justice, it would also damage democracy in Taiwan, as it creates unfair competition,” DPP Chairperson and presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told a news conference following the committee’s meeting in Taipei.
“After the next legislature is inaugurated, the DPP will seek to cooperate with all parties to pass a [proposed] political party act, which would define a political party as a non-profit organization, limiting its sources of funding to membership fees, political donations made according to the law, government subsidies and interest thereof,” she added.
Photo: CNA
Tsai said party-run businesses are the “cancer of democracy,” adding that they should be strictly prohibited.
“Although the KMT says that it has put all of its party assets into trust, it is still able to profit from interests via operations and handling of [companies’] assets, leading to unfair competition among political parties,” she said.
In addition to prohibiting political parties from running businesses, Tsai said that there should also be a law to address illegitimate party assets.
“I would like to call on [KMT chairman] Eric Chu [朱立倫] to cease selling off KMT assets,” Tsai said. “As for business leaders, I would like to urge them to not be involved in transactions concerning KMT assets based on corporate social responsibility and ethics, to avoid being trapped in disputes in the future.”
One of the richest political parties in the world, the KMT controversially obtained many of its party assets after taking over properties left by the Japanese after World War II, although the properties should be owned by the government, not a political party.
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
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