Several civic groups affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday announced that they are to jointly hold a forum in Taipei, inviting KMT chairperson hopefuls to answer questions regarding the party’s future.
The forum, scheduled to take place on Saturday at 9am, is to be jointly hosted by the pro-reform Grassroots Alliance, Open KMT, Workers of the Closed Party and the Chong Shing Elites of the Kuomintang.
“Following the KMT’s unprecedented defeat in last month’s presidential and legislative elections, several groups founded by young KMT members, including the Grassroots Alliance, Open KMT, and Workers of the Closed Party, have joined forces and endeavored to inject new momentum into the party’s reform efforts,” Grassroots Alliance founder Lee Zheng-hao (李正皓) said yesterday.
Lee said that with the KMT’s chairperson by-election to take place on March 26, they decided to hold the forum titled “Chairperson, may I ask a question?” in an effort to subject candidates’ ideas and values to public scrutiny.
The forum consists of four phases: opening remarks by candidates, questions from event organizers, questions from the audience and concluding remarks by the candidates, Lee said.
“The event organizers’ questions will cover five topics: the establishment of an intraparty system for cultivating young talent, structural adjustments to the KMT’s deep-blue Huang Fu-hsing military veterans branch, possible solutions to the party’s contentious assets, the direction of cross-strait relations and the reconstruction of the KMT’s core values,” Lee said.
Lee added that 100 people are to be admitted to the forum as members of the audience, adding that those who want to attend need to register online at http://goo.gl/forms/Ndz9ywIa0K.
As of yesterday, three of the KMT’s five chairperson candidates had agreed to attend the forum, including KMT Acting Chairperson Huang Min-hui (黃敏惠), Taipei City Councilor Lee Hsin (李新) and KMT Legislator Apollo Chen (陳學聖), Lee said.
However, former deputy legislative speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) and KMT Central Standing Committee member Lin Rong-te (林榮德) have yet to respond to the groups’ invitation, Lee said.
“We will continue to extend invitations to hopefuls that have not responded,” he said.
According to the KMT’s by-election regulations, only hopefuls who collect signatures from at least 3 percent of all party members before Sunday can officially register as candidates.
Meanwhile, a source from Hung’s camp, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Hung would not attend the forum due to a schedule conflict.
“Regardless of which election she is in, Hung has never signed petitions or attended events hosted by unofficial organizations. She is inclined not to participate in Saturday’s forum and does not plan to attend other similar events in the future,” the source said.
Hung only hopes that KMT headquarters holds a formal debate among chairperson hopefuls at the earliest date possible in a just and open manner, the source added.
Hung yesterday said that she has garnered more than 16,000 signatures from party members and has therefore crossed the threshold to register her candidacy.
On Facebook, she called for volunteers to help monitor the voting process during the by-election.
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiao-kuang
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