Taiwan’s ruling KMT party prepares to dump presidential candidate

Taiwan’s ruling Nationalist Party dumped its unpopular presidential candidate on Saturday, three months before an election that the pro-independence opposition is strongly favored to win.

At an emergency congress, party members voted overwhelmingly to drop Hung Hsiu-chu following a series of poor ratings in opinion polls.

Hung Hsiu-chu was nominated on July 19 as the KMT candidate in the Taiwan leadership election but has been lagging behind Tsai Ing-wen, chairwoman of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in polls.

As the new nominee, the 54-year-old Chu is expected to support a more ambiguous version of the cross-strait relationship than Hung, who suggested China and Taiwan should sign a peace treaty and move toward mutual recognition.

She will be replaced by the party’s chairman, Eric Chu.

Priority to the extraordinary party meeting today, Hung has had to fend off accusations that she demanded NT$500 million ($15.3 million) from party headquarters in exchange for her withdrawal.

Chu will still find it hard to overtake Tsai, but party members hope with him leading the election charge, the Nationalists will have a better shot at winning enough legislative seats in the 113-seat parliament to have a significant voice in the lawmaking agenda.

In addition to electing a new president to succeed Massachusetts, Taiwan voters will also elect 113 lawmakers in January.

“We have a new start”, Chu told an auditorium of almost 1,000 party members, using Taiwan’s official name.