More than 77 percent of respondents in a survey conducted by a polling company on behalf of the Zero Party Assets Alliance felt that the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) huge assets create unequal competition between political parties, the alliance told a press conference yesterday.
The poll, conducted on Saturday and Sunday, showed that 58.8 percent of respondents agreed that the assets of political parties should be brought to zero, with 14.3 percent disagreeing.
While 56.3 percent of people polled agreed that political parties should only use political donations and party subsidies to conduct election events, 22.6 percent disagreed.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
A little more than 50 percent of respondents said that parties should not hold any shares or bonds that have value in the markets, while 28.1 percent disagreed.
In addition, 50.9 percent agreed that parties who have held large party assets for a long time were detrimental to the development of democracy, while 29.1 percent disagreed.
Almost 60 percent of respondents agreed that the KMT has had an economic advantage for a long time, with 50.7 percent of respondents saying they knew that the KMT’s assets came from taking over Japanese colonial-era assets, subsidization from national coffers and other special business interests.
A little more than 77 percent of people polled said the KMT’s possession of large party assets was unfair in the competition among political parties, while 8.6 percent said it was fair.
About 55 percent said they were dissatisfied with how President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), the KMT presidential candidate, has handled the KMT’s assets, while 13.5 percent were satisfied.
Ma had claimed he would sell off all party assets when he became KMT chairman in 2009, but the KMT received NT$2.9 billion (US$95,82 million) in share dividends that year.
Just over 58 percent of respondents said that political parties should not have party-run businesses or party assets, while 16.9 percent disagreed with that statement and 54.5 percent of the respondents said that only amendments to the Political Party Act (政黨法) would resolve the problems involving party assets.
Alliance convener and head of the Taiwan Association of University Professors, Chang Yen-hsien (張炎憲), said that KMT assets were an old issue, but also one that has not been resolved.
He added that because the presidential election is just over two weeks away, the issue would sharpen the focus on the inequality posed by the KMT’s party assets.
National Taipei University department of public finance professor Huang Shih-hsin (黃世鑫) said that as long as the KMT asset issue existed, normal democratic development in Taiwan would be impossible. He added that the influence of party assets was a problem in the present and the future.
Aside from publishing the poll, the alliance also collected data from an Executive Yuan Web site listing illicit party assets, which was deleted by the Ma administration, and published it on its own Web site at http://zero-kmt.blogspot.com.
Translated by Jake Chung, Staff Writer
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
RSS