Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) won the party’s chairperson by-election yesterday with nearly 69 percent of the vote over former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌).
Voting favored Chiang in all 22 counties and cities, KMT statistics showed.
In Taipei, where Hau served as mayor from 2006 to 2014, Chiang garnered nearly 60 percent of the votes, gaining about 2,600 more than Hau.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Votes from party members overseas were expected to favor Hau, but the party’s data showed that most went to Chiang.
The by-election had a low turnout of only 35.85 percent, or 124,019 people out of 345,971 who were eligible to vote.
Chiang received 84,860 votes, or 68.8 percent of the valid ballots, while Hau received 38,483. There were 676 invalid votes.
Hau issued a statement at about 6pm — before vote-counting had been completed — acknowledging defeat and congratulating Chiang on winning the election.
Hau thanked the members who voted and the volunteers who helped with the election process.
Chiang has a significant burden to bear over the next year and we hope he lives up to his promise of change, Hau said.
Hau said he has always believed, and still does, that if the KMT is strong, it can help make Taiwan a better place.
Chiang thanked supporters for voting for him and said their choice ensured that the KMT’s handover from the previous generation to the next would be successful.
Chiang said that he would institute organizational changes in the KMT and place less emphasis on party headquarters and more on local party chapters.
This would enable the party to be more connected to local residents, he said.
He promised to upgrade, improve and digitize party affairs, saying that this would be just the beginning of sweeping changes.
“The KMT from now on will be a party that is more modern and swift to respond to demands,” Chiang said.
Chiang said that he had spoken with Hau on the telephone and hopes to work with him to introduce reforms that would improve the KMT.
The by-election was to fill the vacancy left by Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), who stepped down last month after the party’s losses in the Jan. 11 presidential and legislative elections.
The KMT plans to hold an inauguration ceremony for Chiang tomorrow morning.
PREPAREDNESS: Given the difficulty of importing ammunition during wartime, the Ministry of National Defense said it would prioritize ‘coproduction’ partnerships A newly formed unit of the Marine Corps tasked with land-based security operations has recently replaced its aging, domestically produced rifles with more advanced, US-made M4A1 rifles, a source said yesterday. The unnamed source familiar with the matter said the First Security Battalion of the Marine Corps’ Air Defense and Base Guard Group has replaced its older T65K2 rifles, which have been in service since the late 1980s, with the newly received M4A1s. The source did not say exactly when the upgrade took place or how many M4A1s were issued to the battalion. The confirmation came after Chinese-language media reported
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
RSS