Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) formally announced his candidacy yesterday as registration opened for the party chairmanship election.
Registration will close on Friday and the election is scheduled for May 18.
Chai yesterday said that he wanted to stand in the contest because he felt it was his unshirkable duty to do something for the party, which he said has been facing an unparalleled crisis since it lost the legislative election in January and the presidential election last month.
PHOTO: LU CHUN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
“I promise, if given a chance, to do my very best to salvage the party and the lost trust of the people of Taiwan,” he said.
If elected, Chai said, he would make efforts to keep the 5.4 million people who voted for the DPP in the presidential election and hoped to obtain 1 million more to resume power.
Referring to the talk about generational change, the 73-year-old Chai said that he agreed with the notion of transferring power to the younger generation and that, if elected, he would propose to amend the party charter to establish one or two vice chairpersons.
“The party is in a dire situation, far worse than it was some 20 years ago during the dangwai [outside the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)] period,” Chai said. “I cannot solve all the party’s problems alone, so I am thinking of jointly leading the party with the vice chairpersons, who must not only have experience, but also have Taiwan-centered consciousness.”
Chai also addressed the much-criticized problem of “shell party members” or nominal party members who are members recruited by a faction boss or politician with a view to increasing their influence in the party.
Nominal members have little or no interest in the party themselves, but present a vote bank on which the politically ambitious can draw.
Chai said that he would like to see these members transform themselves from mere voting machines to individuals devoting themselves to community or charity work. To that end, he would propose to train “democracy volunteers” at the party’s Democracy Academy.
Chai also vowed to put the party’s platform into practice, in particular building a new republic.
Chai said vice president-elect Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) had pushed Taiwan into peril by attending the Boao Forum for Asia in China, as had president-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) by recognizing the so-called “1992 consensus,” in which the KMT said that Taipei and Beijing agreed that there is “one China” and each side has its own interpretation of its meaning.
Any negotiation with China would be meaningless if the negotiation was conducted under the framework of “one China,” Chai said, adding that the Ma administration should request that Beijing respect the existence of the Republic of China rather than ask it to relinquish its sovereignty.
If elected, Chai said, he would produce effective measures to counter Ma’s policies, but he did not elaborate what the measures would be.
While Chai said he would stand in the contest until the very end, he left room for negotiation. DPP Chairman Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) has said that he is not against using negotiations to find a new party leader and he would negotiate with interested parties.
The party would only have an election if the negotiations failed, he said.
Meanwhile, the DPP said yesterday that Yao Jen-to (姚人多), an assistant professor of sociology at National Tsinghua University, would serve as a special assistant to Hsieh, while Taipei City Councilwoman Yen Sheng-kuan (顏聖冠) would head the DPP’s Culture and Information Department.
The party said the two would offer their services free of charge.
SEND A MESSAGE: Sinking the amphibious assault ship, the lead warship of its class, is meant to show China the US Navy is capable of sinking their ships, an analyst said The US and allied navies plan to sink a 40,000-tonne ship at the latest Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise to simulate defeating a Chinese amphibious assault on Taiwan. This year’s RIMPAC — the 29th iteration of the world’s largest naval exercise — involves the US, 28 partners, more than 25,000 personnel, 40 warships, three submarines and more than 150 aircraft operating in and around Hawaii from yesterday to Aug. 1, the US Navy said in a press release. The major components of the event include multidomain warfare exercises in multiship surface engagements, anti-submarine warfare and multi-axis defense of a carrier strike
Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China when traveling in countries with close ties to Beijing, Taiwan Association of University Professors deputy chairman Chen Li-fu (陳俐甫) said on Friday. Chen’s comments came after China on Friday last week announced new judicial guidelines targeting Taiwanese independence advocates. Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Djibouti are among the countries where Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China, he said. The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday elevated the travel alert for China, Hong Kong and Macau to “orange” after Beijing announced its guidelines to “severely punish Taiwanese independence diehards for splitting the country and inciting secession.” Extradition treaties
The airspace around Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) is to be closed for an hour on July 25 and July 23 respectively, due to the Han Kuang military exercises, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday. The annual exercise is to be held on Taiwan proper and its outlying islands from July 22 to 26. During last year’s exercise, the military conducted anti-aircraft landing drills at the Taoyuan airport for the first time, for which a one-hour no-fly ban was issued. Based on a live-fire bulletin sent out by the Maritime and Port Bureau, the nation’s
CROSS-BORDER CRIME: The suspects cannot be charged with cybercrime in Indonesia as their targets were in Malaysia, an Indonesian immigration director said Indonesian immigration authorities have detained 103 Taiwanese after a raid at a villa on Bali, officials said yesterday. They were accused of misusing their visas and residence permits, and are suspected of possible cybercrimes, Safar Muhammad Godam, director of immigration supervision and enforcement at the Indonesian Ministry of Law and Human Rights told reporters at a news conference. “The 103 foreign nationals stayed at the villa and conducted suspicious activities, which we suspect are activities related to cybercrime activities,” he said, presenting laptops and routers at the news conference. Godam said Indonesian authorities cannot charge them with conducting cybercrime. “During the inspection, we