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Kuomintang congress brings in reforms
2000-06-19
Hong Kong - Taiwan's Kuomintang yesterday concluded a two-day national congress by making major changes to its charter and confirming five new deputy party leaders, South China Morning Post reported.Former vice-president Lien Chan easily won Saturday's election to succeed former president Lee Teng-hui as party chairman. The list of deputy chiefs included the KMT's first female party deputy, former Council of Cultural Affairs chairwoman Lin Cheng-chi. Ms Lin expressed "shock" at her nomination to the post, calling it a "surprise within a surprise", given the party's devastating defeat in the March 18 presidential election. "Being a deputy leader of the party was not in her career plans," KMT spokesman Jason Hu Chih-chiang said. "Lin Cheng-chi believes that the responsibility is very heavy. She has promised to give of her best to the party." But apart from Ms Lin, the new deputy party heads are familiar faces. Topping the list is former premier Vincent Siew Wan-chang, who ran for vice-president on Mr Lien's ticket on March 18. "I have a duty and a responsibility to give back to the party," he said. Legislative Yuan Speaker Wang Jin-pyng, who represented the strongest wing of the KMT after the party lost control of the executive branch, was second on the list of vice-chairmen. Chiang Chung-ling, a former defence minister and the only mainland-born vice-chairman, said he would do his best to live up to "the limitless honour" of the post. Wu Poh-hsiung, a long-serving interior minister and a leading figure among Taiwan's ethnic Hakka minority, was also named a vice-chairman. The party's national congress marked the last time that congress delegates could elect the party's leadership. In a measure that attracted protests from all sides, congress deputies voted to amend the KMT charter so that party chairmen would be directly elected by rank-and-file members in future. A special committee was formed to work out the details of just how the decision would be put into practice. In future, all 31 members of the party's elite policy-making body, the Central Standing Committee, will also be directly elected. Provisions allowing the party's chairman to nominate half of the body's membership were scrapped. Demonstrators outside Taipei's Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, where the congress was held, continued shouting slogans demanding former president Lee Teng-hui's expulsion from the party. But inside the proceedings went smoothly after leading figures, including Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou, lined up behind the new chairman, Mr Lien. Some pundits have predicted that the charismatic Mr Ma might attempt to run for chairman after reform efforts were completed a few months from now. One measure passed by the congress was the setting up of an ad hoc committee to manage the party's assets. It will have to complete a report on the assets in three months and transfer them to a trust within a year. Party officials announced on Saturday that the assets were worth about NT$78 billion (HK$19.7 billion).
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