The KMT faces an internal quandary, with a recent standing committee election having resulted in controversy over vote buying and corruption. KMT chair Eric Chu has vowed to investigate and get to the bottom of any corruption, stating that he will take action within two weeks...
Former New Taipei mayor and previous party chair Eric Chu was the winner of the KMT chair elections today. Chu was the clear winner, with 83,027 votes, or 45.96% of counted votes, at press time. However, what proves significant is that after Chu, Sun Yat-Sen School head Chang Ya-chung won the second highest number of votes, with 58,980 or 32.65% of votes. After Chang was current chair Johnny Chiang, who was running for re-election, with 33,604 or 18.6% of counted votes, and in last was former Changhua county magistrate Cho Po-yuan, with 5,037 votes, or 2.79%...
The second KMT chair debate, which took place on September 18th, had five rounds. The first round consisted of opening comments, while the second round allowed candidates to field questions from a panel of commentators that they were allowed to choose from. The third round involved questions asked by a panel of media experts, the fourth round allowed for cross-examination between candidates, and the last round consisted of closing comments. The four candidates are current chair Johnny Chiang, former party chair and New Taipei mayor Eric Chu, Sun Yat-Sen School head Chang Ya-chung, and former Changhua magistrate Cho Po-yuan...
What emerges from the KMT chair election debate is that the party has failed to take action on the fundamental issues facing the party. This is no different than last year, when Johnny Chiang was elected. What surprises, then, is to what extent there were few ideological differences between any of the candidates and how the general discourse between the candidates gestures toward the shifts in the party over the past year. The general consensus of the party has shifted to become significantly more deep Blue compared to last year...
It proved surprising last week when current KMT chair Johnny Chiang was named to the Time 100 Next 2021 list, a list of up-and-coming leaders named by Time Magazine. That is, the precise question facing Chiang is whether he will be consigned to irrelevance if he loses his reelection bid in the upcoming KMT chair election...
The issue of ractopamine-treated pork imports continues to be a contested one in Taiwan. The Tsai administration made moves to lift limits on imports of pork treated with ractopamine from the US in September, with the aim of securing a bilateral trade agreement between Taiwan and the US...
KMT chair Johnny Chiang rejected suggestions that the party was considering changing its name last week, with signs of a growing internal split in the KMT. Chiang was asked about the issue after the party passed a resolution to seek to reestablish formal diplomatic ties between the ROC and the US. The resolution surprised, because of the KMT’s historical advocacy of unification between Taiwan and China...
The KMT surprised yesterday by proposing two resolutions that passed unanimously in the Legislative Yuan, in a rare show of bipartisanship in Taiwanese electoral politics...
A wave of backlash has ensued against the KMT after comments by a party representative at the party’s recent national congress arguing that the contents of the National Palace Museum’s collection belong to the party and can be considered a party asset. In particular, the comments are seen as reflective of the authoritarian views of the KMT, in that despite Taiwan’s democratization, some members of the party still view the KMT as synonymous with the state...