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.
Intelligence agents have recorded 510,000 instances of “controversial information” being spread online by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) so far this year, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said in a report yesterday, as it warned of artificial intelligence (AI) being employed to generate destabilizing misinformation. The bureau submitted a written report to the Legislative Yuan in preparation for National Security Bureau Director-General Tsai Ming-yen’s (蔡明彥) appearance before the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee today. The CCP has been using cognitive warfare to divide Taiwanese society by commenting on controversial issues such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) investments in the
INVESTIGATION: The case is the latest instance of a DPP figure being implicated in an espionage network accused of allegedly leaking information to Chinese intelligence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) member Ho Jen-chieh (何仁傑) was detained and held incommunicado yesterday on suspicion of spying for China during his tenure as assistant to then-minister of foreign affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮). The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said Ho was implicated during its investigation into alleged spying activities by former Presidential Office consultant Wu Shang-yu (吳尚雨). Prosecutors said there is reason to believe Ho breached the National Security Act (國家安全法) by leaking classified Ministry of Foreign Affairs information to Chinese intelligence. Following interrogation, prosecutors petitioned the Taipei District Court to detain Ho, citing concerns over potential collusion or tampering of evidence. The
‘COMPREHENSIVE PLAN’: Lin Chia-lung said that the government was ready to talk about a variety of issues, including investment in and purchases from the US The National Stabilization Fund (NSF) yesterday announced that it would step in to staunch stock market losses for the ninth time in the nation’s history. An NSF board meeting, originally scheduled for Monday next week, was moved to yesterday after stocks plummeted in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s announcement of 32 percent tariffs on Taiwan on Wednesday last week. Board members voted to support the stock market with the NT$500 billion (US$15.15 billion) fund, with injections of funds to begin as soon as today. The NSF in 2000 injected NT$120 billion to stabilize stocks, the most ever. The lowest amount it
NEGOTIATIONS: Taiwan has good relations with Washington and the outlook for the negotiations looks promising, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo said Taiwan’s GDP growth this year is expected to decrease by 0.43 to 1.61 percentage points due to the effects of US tariffs, National Development Council (NDC) Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei yesterday, citing a preliminary estimate by a private research institution. Taiwan’s economy would be significantly affected by the 32 percent “reciprocal” tariffs slapped by the US, which took effect yesterday, Liu said, adding that GDP growth could fall below 3 percent and potentially even dip below 2 percent to 1.53 percent this year. The council has commissioned another institution
RSS