The election for the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) chairperson will not simply be a case of choosing a new DPP leader; it will also be a cut-throat war between DPP factions, who are eager to gain dominance, political analysts said yesterday.
Since Dec. 3, the day that the DPP suffered an unprecedented election debacle in local elections, accusations and self-justification thrown back and forth among different party factions have not ceased. Although everyone in the DPP -- from President Chen Shui-bian (
"Whether the by-election will be a starting point for the DPP's revamp or just a process of unseating someone is my question now," said Chiang Ming-chin (
"I think this by-election will be a sequel to the competition between the DPP's internal factions," Chiang said, pointing out that the candidates running for DPP chair represent different powers within the party.
The three DPP members vying for the post -- former Presidential Office secretary-general Yu Shyi-kun, pro-independence veteran and Legislator Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) and former Changhua County commissioner Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠) -- have already begun their campaigns.
Wong obtained former DPP chairman Lin I-hsiung's (
Although Yu yesterday said in a television interview that the president has not intervened in the campaign and that the election is not an "anti-Chen or pro-Chen" war, political analysts said that Yu's words were opposite to the real situation.
"The by-election is virtually a war between the anti-Chen and pro-Chen powers," political analyst Hsu Yung-ming (
Hsu said that Yu's victory would ensure Chen's power in the DPP, enabling him to retain influence on the political situation even as his presidential term comes to an end.
"The new DPP chairperson will have the right to make the nominations for the 2007 legislative elections and the person who has influence over the legislature or has the say over who to work with will be the person with the real the power," Hsu said.
Each DPP faction is also eyeing the 2008 presidential candidacy, and the chairmanship election will be the first round in that game.
The DPP has about 530,000 members, but only about 230,000 will be eligible to vote in next month's by-election.
According to DPP estimates, the voting rate will be about 40 percent and close to 90,000 members are expected to vote on Jan. 15.
In other words, the candidate who gains more than 50,000 votes will become the new chairperson.
So far, unlike Yu and Chai's active campaign strategies, Wong is taking a more low-key approach to promoting herself.
Wong began visiting local chapters and members on Monday, and over the next few weeks she will talk to social groups and party members belonging to minority groups, according to Wong's assistant Wu Jui-yuan (
"How Lin campaigns for Wong or what he says during the last few days [of the campaign] will be a key to the result," Chiang said.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
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