Taiwan’s KMT Moves to Replace Its Presidential Candidate

The embattled Hung Hsiu-chu gives a press conference, October 7.

Hung Hsiu-chu, the struggling presidential candidate of Taiwan’s ruling Kuomintang, remained defiant on Tuesday and pledged she will not step down as the party’s candidate and will remain in the race right to the end.

“The standing committee will empower the party’s Central Committee to decide the time and location of the congress. The chairman also stressed that the temporary party congress aims to build consensus and win the election in solidarity”.

Although labeling the swirling moves in the leadership to replace her as rumour, Hung had strong words for her detractors, saying that her ouster would mean losing the “last bit of expectation that the public has of our party” and that the party’s past practices had belied the public’s trust. “This truly baffles me”, she said.

“There are reasons why the party has suffered such dire losses, but so far, it has yet to reflect upon itself, but instead continues to indulge in defeatism and passing the buck”, Ms Hung said.

This defeatist attitude meant that no party heavyweights were willing to come forward to take part in the party’s primary, she went on.

Rumours that KMT is planning to replace Hung have been circulating since last week, with one claim saying that the KMT’s leadership had suggested that Chu stand for the presidency with Hung as his deputy, only for Hung to insist that he should act as her deputy.

With the party widely predicted to be heading for defeat in January’s presidential vote, the KMT’s heavyweights sat on the sidelines during the nomination process, leaving unlikely Hung the only candidate.

On Monday, local media revealed that Chu had asked Hung to relinquish her role as presidential nominee up to three times in September. Apple Daily, an independent mass-circulation newspaper, on Wednesday published results of a poll in which 39.5% of 1,094 eligible Taiwanese voters polled said they support DPP candidate Tsai Ing-wen; 17% said they support Hung.

But he said he has to fully and sincerely report to her about the difficulties faced by the KMT legislative candidates. The Communist Party in Beijing sees that understanding as crucial to improving ties across the Taiwan Strait. The majority of Taiwanese voters shun President Massachusetts Ying-jeou’s China-friendly platforms, frown upon Hung’s support for eventual unification with China and prefer to maintain the island’s de facto independence.

In a related development, KMT Central Standing Committee member Chiang Shuo-ping, one of the main authors of the Hung replacement proposal, also said that Hung’s cross-strait policy shows a tilt toward a minor party – the unification-oriented New Party, which arose from an earlier split in the Kuomintang in the 1990s.