Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday hurled insults at KMT Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu’s (洪秀柱) team and cross-strait policy platform at a solidarity rally held for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairperson candidate Wu Den-yih’s (吳敦義) campaign.
Ma took aim at a recent controversy, when it was revealed that “dummy members,” had been signed to the party en masse, saying that the practice “used to be the Democratic Progressive Party’s trick, not the KMT’s.”
Addressing accusations that members with organized crime backgrounds joined the party, Ma said the reports have had a terrible effect on the party, and such “pests” must be eradicated for the KMT to regain its “sunshine image.”
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
The KMT has “a clear understanding of right and wrong, upholds morality and takes its connections with party members seriously, characteristics that have arisen from the party’s 100-year history,” he said.
“However, there are some party comrades that have been ranting at their own brethren; there are even reports alleging that certain party members plan to launch a political vendetta against me, accusing me of being to blame for devastating the party and the nation,” Ma said.
One of the “comrades” Ma was referring to is understood to be KMT Central Policy Committee director Alex Tsai (蔡正元), who has been involved in a series of heated spats and exchanges with Ma’s office, the most recent regarding Ma’s acknowledgment that Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) should be held accountable for the 228 Incident.
Tsai responded that then-Taiwan governor Chen Yi (陳儀), who ordered police and military action against protesters, was less corrupt than Ma.
The vendetta that Ma mentioned is believed to relate to forums organized by Chang Ya-chung (張亞中), a close aide of Hung’s and the principal of the “Sun Yat-sen School” set up by Hung.
The school, launched at the beginning of this month, was said to be “for the appraisal of past KMT leaders and their achievements and misdeeds.”
The school evaluated former presidents Chiang Kai-shek on March 2, Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) on March 9 and Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) on Thursday.
Ma is scheduled to be discussed on Thursday next week.
Ma also repeated that the so-called “1992” consensus has benefited Taiwan greatly and was “not a ‘consensus’ between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party, but one reached, under the direction of former president Lee Teng-hui, between Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits.”
“One China, different interpretations” has garnered a high level of support, he said, adding that it should not be “arbitrarily overlooked, revised or abolished.”
“It should not be changed to [Hung’s] ‘one China, same interpretation,’ which has left many of our supporters disconcerted,” Ma said.
The “1992 consensus” refers to a supposed understanding reached during the cross-strait talks in 1992 that both Taiwan and China acknowledge that there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what that means.
In 2006 former Mainland Affairs Council minister Su Chi (蘇起) admitted he made up the term in 2000, before the KMT handed power to the Democratic Progressive Party.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS