Current New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu announces he's running for KMT Chair, and denies he's going to run for President. Note how Chu has appropriated many DPP/reform critiques and ideas, including constitutional reform, lowering the voting age, and criticisms of the wealth distribution. Classic move, to yank the rug out from under the opposition by adopting its ideas. Chu is the popular choice of the party faithful and widely seen as the most likely candidate.
The most common complaint at the moment is that Chu is just another Ma Ying-jeou. The complaint that the KMT is too old and needs a younger boost has been a perennial one (remember the SK II movement from 2005?), and Ma Ying-jeou was once the target of appeals from the rank and file. So it will interesting to see how things pan out. Chu is allied to powerful political family, and another common remark on him is that there are some pretty serious skeletons in that closet, the kind that tend to come out in Presidential runs. He might actually be serious about not running, since the recent elections gave the DPP a big boost, and he might not want to lose. But the KMT still has some pretty tempting advantages...
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This translation comes from Solidarity.tw. The original post is from Chu's Facebook.
On November 29, the Kuomintang suffered an unprecedented defeat. Citizens used their ballots to unleash a mighty roar, proving we must learn from our mistakes and thoroughly reexamine our direction and administration.
The economy and cross-strait relations were originally the Kuomintang’s strong suits, but following more than six years in power, the public feels its purse strings tightening and unequal distribution of wealth worsening. A market economy that’s lost its way and a political system that’s lost its competence have forced the ruling party to pay a bitter political price. Citizens want cross-strait relations to be peaceful and mutually beneficial, but because of distorted wealth allocation, suspicion of special privileges, and the bad behavior of a few Taiwanese businessmen upon returning to Taiwan, citizens’ dissatisfaction with us has deepened. High property prices, disputes over mandatory twelve-year education, and food safety problems in recent years have made citizens still more anxious, causing them to lose confidence in the government.
As a member of the Kuomintang, I too must take responsibility for this electoral defeat. I have no right to just point fingers at others and forget to examine myself. In city government, I must hew closer to public opinion, use compassion to resolve citizens’ difficulties, and make a greater effort to win the approval of more citizens.
“Do you want to run for party chair or not?” This is a question I’ve had to face every day since the Kuomintang’s brutal defeat.....
Read the rest at Solidarity.tw.
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It will be interesting to see the resistance to his proposals from within the party and to what extent he actually implements them. An egalitarian KMT that supports constitutional reform, reaches out to the youth, relinquishes its stolen assets, and changess its slavisly pro-China policy simply would not be the KMT anymore.
ReplyDeleteNote that Chu announced that his goal as chair of KMT was to (order the KMT legislators to) change ("reform") the country's system, without consulting with KMT legislators first. The will of the new King Chu will be the will of KMT.
ReplyDeleteNo word, as chair of KMT, about what he would do to reform KMT, which is the job of KMT chair after a major election defeat.
He will not change KMT's system in which the Chair is the monarch.
In short, his promise is to "reform" the country, not his party.
A failure of "reforming" the country ==> the opposition shares (in fact, will be assigned by mass media with) the responsibility.
No promise of "reforming" the KMT ==> no failure on his part.
Overall, he set up a formula for him to be absolutely safe.
In one sentence, all he said was: "I will reform YOU, not me".
I'd been wondering for some time whether Yu Shyu-Kyun's near-upset of Chu would have been enough to knock him out of presidential contention. I'd felt that the DPP missed an enormous opportunity by failing to defeat Eric Chu in that New Taipei election because had they pulled off such an upset, they'd have eliminated the KMT's best presidential contender in 2016. Instead, Yu didn't win, and Chu remains a realistic 2016 candidate anyway.
ReplyDeleteHOWEVER..........even if Chu had lost, maybe the KMT would have run him in 2016 anyway for lack of better candidates, save perhaps Hau Long-bin.
aaaaaaaaahhhhhh chuuuuuuuuuuuuu
ReplyDeleteWho is this guy anyway? I know his background, but who is he? I live in XinBei and have never heard of anything he's accomplished.
Can't believe out of 23 million people this is the best they can come up with. Then again, its bush - clinton - bush - ovomit - bush/clinton/romney (again) banker puppets for our disgraceful leadership.