Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) yesterday said that there is no doubt that KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) is her election campaign manager and KMT Secretary-General Lee Shu-chuan (李四川) the campaign director, after weeks of media speculation that nobody in the KMT camp was willing to take the jobs.
Following Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson and presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) announcement that Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) is to be her campaign manager, Hung on Wednesday said that it is the candidate who runs that matters.
“If the candidate is empty [in substance], it would not change a thing, no matter who has been chosen as the campaign manager,” she said.
Photo: Chou Min-hung, Taipei Times
When asked about her own campaign team, Hung yesterday said that the KMT has a united front that binds the party’s legislative and presidential campaigns, “so Chairman Chu and Lee are undoubtedly the campaign manager and director, and other personnel appointments will be announced later.”
Speculation was rife that Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) was Hung’s first choice for campaign manager, until Wang refused the appointment publicly last month, saying that “putting me in a difficult position is tantamount to putting the legislature in a difficult position.”
Media reports have also mentioned former KMT secretary-general Liao Liou-yi (廖了以), former Examination Yuan president John Kuan (關中), Presidential Office Secretary-General Tseng Tung-chuan (曾永權) and National Policy Foundation executive general Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘) as possible campaign managers, but none were confirmed.
Hung reiterated that it is “impossible” that the KMT would change its candidate now, as rumors spread yet again that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is not against replacing Hung with Vice President Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) as the KMT presidential candidate if Hung’s poll numbers remain low this month.
Hung also stressed that it is not possible for the KMT and the People First Party — the two parties that are widely seen as “pan-blue” — to cooperate, saying the latter has “already collaborated with somebody else,” indicating that the PFP is aligned with the DPP.
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