A series of challenges awaits President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) as he prepares to take over the party chairmanship, analysts said yesterday.
Ma was elected KMT chairman in yesterday’s party election in which he was the sole candidate for the top post. He will take over the job on Sept. 12 during the party congress.
Ma, who had said he would not take over the KMT chairmanship during last year’s presidential campaign, changed his mind after assuming office and announced his candidacy last month in a bid to tighten his control over the legislature, the party and cross-strait affairs.
PHOTO: HOU CHENG-HSU, TAIPEI TIMES
Shih Cheng-feng (施正鋒), a political commentator at National Dong Hwa University, said Ma’s decision to double as party chairman was not surprising and that the KMT’s functions will be weakened under Ma’s leadership regardless of his support in yesterday’s election.
“Ma takes over the chairmanship in order to hold the KMT’s power in check and centralize his power, Shih said.
While Ma repeatedly he was not seeking the chairmanship to expand his power but to take more responsibility, Shih said it was clear that Ma wanted the job to push through his policies more effectively and to eliminate negative factors on his way to a second term as president.
As KMT chairman, Ma will have more control on the nomination of party candidates, especially after the redrawing of administrative zones following the mergers or upgrade of counties and cities.
However, challenges and opposition from local factions have delayed the KMT’s nomination process for local government head elections and finalizing candidates for the December’s polls will be Ma’s first task as chairman.
In Hualien, for example, five politicians registered for the KMT’s primary for the county commissioner election. However, the party called off the primary last month, reportedly because Ma wanted Minister of Health Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川) to run in the election.
The KMT has had a hard time finalizing a candidate for the Yunlin County legislative by-election because former legislator Chang Sho-wen’s (張碩文) father, Chang Hui-yuan (張輝元) — who was found guilty of vote-buying in his first trial — insists on running in the election.
Shih said Ma, who has kept his distance from local factions, would have to deal with the local politics if he plans to nominate candidates with integrity as he has promised.
Wang Kun-yi (王崑義), a professor at National Taiwan Ocean University, said Ma’s doubling as KMT chairman will give him absolute power over the party, the legislature, the military and cross-strait affairs.
He said the Ma administration could become authoritarian if the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) failed to keep the KMT’s performance in check.
“Ma could rule the nation in an open yet authoritarian way. The DPP should prevent that from happening,” he said.
There has been intense speculation that Ma might attend a KMT-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cross-strait forum in his role as KMT chairman to meet his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao (胡錦濤).
Taking control of the KMT’s communication channel with Beijing would help Ma eliminate the influence of old KMT heavyweights such as former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and outgoing KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hisung (吳伯雄), and claim full authority over cross-strait affairs, Wang said.
Yang Tai-shun (楊泰順), a political science professor at Chinese Culture University, said the main reason Ma wanted the KMT job was to implement his cross-strait policies and control of cross-strait affairs.
Ma could use the KMT’s legislative majority to amend the Constitution, Shih said. He said Ma should ponder the three-way relationship between the Presidential Office, the Executive Yuan and the Legislative Yuan because taking over the chairmanship alone would not solve the power struggle between the three.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Many of the part-time programs for educators were no longer needed, as many teachers obtain a graduate degree before joining the workforce, experts said Taiwanese universities this year canceled 86 programs, Ministry of Education data showed, with educators attributing the closures to the nation’s low birthrate as well as shifting trends. Fifty-three of the shuttered programs were part-time postgraduate degree programs, about 62 percent of the total, the most in the past five years, the data showed. National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) discontinued the most part-time master’s programs, at 16: chemistry, life science, earth science, physics, fine arts, music, special education, health promotion and health education, educational psychology and counseling, education, design, Chinese as a second language, library and information sciences, mechatronics engineering, history, physical education
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
RSS