Several key Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) figures absented themselves from KMT presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu’s (洪秀柱) visits to Changhua and Yunlin counties on Friday and Saturday, a gesture that political observers said were aimed at drawing a line between them and Hung.
The visits were part of a nationwide campaign launched last week, but Hung’s trip to Changhua on Friday saw the absence of local KMT legislators Lin Tsang-min (林滄敏) and Cheng Ru-fen (鄭汝芬), and an early exit by KMT Legislator Wang Hui-mei (王惠美), unlike the warm reception Hung received from all eight KMT legislators in Taichung on Thursday.
Former Yunlin County commissioner Chang Jung-wei (張榮味) and KMT Legislator Chang Chia-chun (張嘉郡) did not attend Hung’s campaign event in Yunlin on Saturday.
A senior KMT legislator, who declined to be named, said that the cold shoulder Hung received could become a theme as she heads farther south, as legislative candidates doubt her ability to win votes in constituencies in central and southern Taiwan.
Hung’s narratives have been unsatisfying, and her previous unilateral discourse on China has squandered the KMT’s advantage on cross-strait issues, alienating herself from pro-localization KMT legislators, in addition to her inability to court neutral voters, the unnamed legislator said.
“If you are not helpful, others cannot help but distance themselves from you,” the unnamed legislator said.
The legislator quoted some KMT members from central and southern municipalities as saying: “Hung’s visit is harmful to us. Voters would cross out anyone who is associated with Hung.”
KMT Legislator Chen Ken-te (陳根德) said that the party has earned a dim electoral prospect with Hung’s cross-strait policies and a sluggish economy caused by President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration, coupled with a provocative remark by a KMT member at the party’s national congress, who said: “Taiwanese have failed the KMT.”
Chen questioned the KMT’s strategy of tying the legislative campaign to the presidential campaign, saying: “If the legislative campaigns are bundled with the presidential campaigns, the candidates might all go to hell.”
Saying that the party could not shift the responsibility onto district legislative candidates alone, Chen questioned what contribution the KMT headquarters and the party’s local chapters have made in formulating separate strategies for legislative and presidential campaigns.
Likening Hung to a mother hen, with legislative candidates as her chicks, Chen said that the hen’s inability to lead the chicks had brought about the absence of local legislators from Hung’s campaign events.
“The mother hen might trample her chicks to death, but the chicks are tied to the hen; they would die with her,” Chen said.
The KMT should separate presidential and legislative campaigns, and the party should mobilize prominent local politicians to stump for Hung, while campaigning for legislative candidates in different, but more useful, ways, which could help the KMT retain a few more seats in the legislature if it loses the presidential race, Chen said.
The KMT should analyze the results of last year’s nine-in-one elections and disconnect the legislative campaigns from the presidential campaign in pan-green strongholds to minimize collateral damage, he said.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said that Hung’s stumping is a recipe for disaster for other candidates, as her inclination toward hasty unification and blatant refusal of localization pose a sharp contrast to public sentiment in the nation’s south.
Election is realpolitik, and the KMT’s pro-localization legislators are not to blame if they adopt a more practical measure by separating their campaigns from Hung’s, Chen said.
In related news, Hung spokesman Jack Yu (游梓翔) yesterday said he plans to stand down from his position on Saturday, a little more than a month after he accepted the role.
On Facebook, Yu said he would return to his teaching job at Shih Hsin University, but that he would continue to advise Hung’s campaign team on matters related to public and media relations.
Additional reporting by CNA
‘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
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS