Realizing that it can't win, the KMT is talking about Constitutional "reform". FocusTaiwan has the list of KMT Presidential candidate and Party Chairman Eric Chu's suggestions:
....he would push for an amendment to the Constitution that would require legislative approval to confirm the appointment of the country's premier.Two of these three are intended to move the power from the Executive to the legislature, in anticipation of continued KMT influence there, and to rein in Tsai's ability to make her own policy. The absentee voting is to enable more Taiwan businessmen in China to vote, on the assumption that they will vote KMT, or that China can force them to.
....will also include lowering the voting age from 20 to 18 and allowing absentee voting,
...He also proposed a change that would allow the president to report to and take questions from the Legislature and he suggested that the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) also adopt such a proposal, which he said should be implement within the first year of the new government.
These are not new ideas. Since Tsai has emerged as the frontrunner and likely next President, the KMT has been talking about having the legislature approve the Premier (April, for example). Back in January the KMT was already advocating these "reforms." The KMT will piously tell you that prior to 1997 it used to do that -- as if in the party-state era the legislature was independent of the KMT could reject a premier. LOL.
Also this week two announcements from the KMT. Former Taichung mayor Jason Hu was appointed Campaign manager and former presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu was given the empty position of chief advisor. Displays of unity followed, because there has been much grumbling among the Deep Deep Blues since Hung was displaced by Chu, and some were threatening not to come out and vote.
The Taipei Times interpreted all the swirling controversy around KMT vice presidential candidate as a KMT smokescreen to protect Eric Chu from scrutiny by the media, which in typical Taiwan Golden Retriever style has been focused on Jenny Wang's real estate deals. But judging from the way KMT candidates are typically protected by the media, I doubt that the KMT needed anything so powerful. A conspiracy theory among pan-Greens argues that Wang was chosen to take the blame when Chu loses.
Most interesting to me was the brief surfacing of the jockeying for the post-election KMT Chairman position. A piece translated by the indefatigable Solidarity observed that Hung wants to be Chair. However, it contended, because the KMT has rulz that say the President must be the Chairman, if Chu steps down because of the election loss, it might "default" to Ma. Of course, last year Ma stepped aside? up? to enable Chu to become the Chairman. So much for the rulz [WARNING: MAY CONTAIN RULES-LIKE SUBSTANCE]...
Lots of watchers feel that Ma will do much damage to Taiwan in the interregnum between the election and Tsai's assumption of the Presidency in May. I am not so sure. Ma is an ideologue whose identity is entirely KMT and ROC and for such individuals, the real battle is for control of the Party. I suspect he's going to expend tons of energy in trying to become Chair after Chu steps down and retain that post after he has to step down as President (when he will not by default become Chair).
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