New KMT Chair Hung makes a classic move

Rice.

Solidarity.tw translated a UDN article on new KMT Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu's appointments to positions within the KMT:

Days after naming members of her campaign team to party posts (S.tw: see below), new KMT Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) tonight announced a second round of personnel appointments. She named a record seven people as KMT deputy secretaries-general:
-Legislator Lin Teh-fu (林德福) (S.tw: KMT legislative caucus secretary-general, and deep-blue representative of Hung’s home district of Yonghe),
-Taitung County Council Speaker Rao Ching-ling (饒慶齡)
-Chiayi City Council Speaker Hsiao Shu-li (蕭淑麗)
-Former Legislator Lin Kuo-cheng (林國正) (Kaohsiung 9)
-Former Legislator Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) (Taichung 3)
-Former Pingtung City Mayor Yeh Shou-shan (葉壽山)
-Former Pingtung County Chapter Chair Chang Ya-ping (張雅屏)

What kind of list is this? It's a list of local KMT Taiwanese faction politicians. Chiayi City Council Speaker Hsaio Shu-li is from the (in)famous Hsiao faction in Chiayi, whose members have scrawled their names as graffiti on many a jail cell. Yang Chiung-ying is a local faction politician from Tanzih where I live -- she was the politician Hung Tz-yung defeated in the last election. Lin Guo-cheng is a former city councilman from Kaohsiung. Etc. The Taipei Times has a list here of other appointments.

The KMT news organ observed:

A Hung staffer went on to say that Hung had short-listed candidates for KMT Vice Chairman, KMT secretary-general, and other senior party executives. However, some of the candidates were professors who had to consider whether they could take an extended sabbatical in the middle of an academic year. Some were also political appointees of the outgoing Ma administration, who would be available only after leaving office on May 20. The staffer commented that “the entire personnel line-up would be determined no later than May 20.”

These are classic Old KMT moves: appoint local faction politicians to party positions lower down in the organizational list, to help bind the factions to the leadership -- note how the list is mostly people from the center and south. Several were council speakers, highly desired positions for their ability to dole out government patronage to cronies. Bringing in KMTers temporarily parked at universities for party and political positions is a classic Old KMT move -- the problem is that they go back to universities when they are done, which doesn't help the party. She is also going to bring in people from the Ma Administration.

What's not being brought in? Young people bristling with energy and ideas. Outsiders. This is management by formula, not reform. Note that none of these people can challenge Hung because they are Taiwanese and do not possess a national following, they are just being put on ice until they run again in 2018 and 2020. She is merely re-affirming KMT control of its local networks. Moreover, anyone she appoints now will have little time to effect change, because Hung is going to face election again late next summer. These are smart moves, however, and obviously someone is giving her good advice.
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