Nine KMT lawmakers and party heavyweights yesterday told journalists they may leave the KMT fold and serve as independents or join other political parties.
Other party members who did not want to be named said they may also follow suit. The lawmakers' departure could cost the KMT its lock on the Legislative Yuan. The KMT occupies 115 of the 225 seats in the legislature.
"I have observed all three major political parties since last March's presidential election, and they don't match my ideals," said KMT Legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順).
"But I don't like the fact that KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) still listens to only a few members," Huang added, saying that Lien was too far removed from the grassroots membership.
Huang said that she had discussed the KMT's development with her father -- former president of the Control Yuan, Huang Tsun-chiu (黃尊秋) -- many times before he died, and has now decided to leave the party.
Huang said she would not join any party for the time being, but Wu Ching-chih (吳清池), another disillusioned KMT lawmaker, said yesterday that he planned to run as a People First Party candidate in December's legislative elections.
"Other party lawmakers also intend to leave," Wu said.
Liu Ping-wei (
Hsu Den-koun (
In addition, former minister of the interior Huang Chu-wen (黃主文) and former party spokesman Huang Hui-chen (黃輝珍) recently both expressed their disappointment with the KMT's new platform.
"The party is betraying Lee Teng-hui's line, which still represents the mainstream thought of Taiwanese," Huang Chu-wen said.
KMT leaders said that they would maintain communications with the wavering lawmakers to persuade them into staying.
"As far as I know, only six party lawmakers have yet to re-register, and they have different reasons for considering not re-registering but we will try to satisfy them to keep them within our ranks," said director-general of the KMT's Organizational Development Committee, Chao Shou-po (
Meanwhile, Lien Chan said at the party's Central Standing Committee weekly meeting yesterday that he was moved to learn that more than 850,000 people have completed membership re-registration procedures.
The KMT, which once boasted two million members, carried out a re-registration drive between Sept. 1 and Dec.31, after its humiliating defeat in the presidential election last year.
The party's central headquarters has extended the deadline of the drive to Jan. 31 to give supporters more time to re-register.
In a related development yesterday, the KMT was preparing to welcome back one of its veteran members, Chen Li-an (
Chen, who quit the party to run independently in the 1996 presidential election, took the initiative to rejoin the party by contacting Lien to express his wishes.
The KMT attaches great importance to his return, and director-general Chao cut short his attendance at the KMT meeting to call on Chen and to bring him his re-registration forms.
According to Chao, Chen said he wants to return because he believes Taiwan and the KMT need him now.
Chen is expected to hold a press conference tomorrow to explain his motives in person.
Another KMT veteran, Lin Yang-kang (
Lin and former premier Hau Pei-tsun (
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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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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