KMT Chief Eric Chu to take over Presidential Campaign

Eric Chu（朱立倫）, the current chief of the ruling KMT Party, (a.k.a. Chinese Nationalist Party) and mayor of New Taipei City, Saturday(10/17) apologized to his residents of New Taipei City, for breaking his promise to serve out his second 4-year term, as the 54-year-old was chosen to be the ‘preferred’ candidate over Deputy Legislative Speaker and incumbent KMT presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-Chu （洪秀柱）in a KMT Congress held at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall.

Following a landslide vote during the KMT congress held yesterday, a majority of 891 KMT representatives agreed to rescind Hung’s candidacy, and approved Chu’s nomination by ‘applauding’.

Hung was officially nominated by the KMT this June, as she passed the 30% threshold of three primary polls with an average approval rating of 46.2%. But she then lost support by advocating ‘stronger relationships’ with China, as many median voters are wary about the island getting way too close to Beijing.

And so despite saying repeatedly before that he would not enter the 2016 Taiwanese Presidential campaign, Chu said on Saturday that it was his ‘responsibility’ to accept the challenge in the party’s darkest hours (KMT just suffered a ‘crushing’ defeat in last year’s local elections), in order to ‘ensure a better world for future generations’, and ’protect the ROC (Republic of China) we love’.

He later challenged the Tsai Ing-wen（蔡英文）, the DPP (Democratic Progressive Party)’s Presidential candidate, to debate on their cross-strait policies, as Tsai had previously stated that she intended to maintain the ‘status quo’.

Chu asked Tsai to define her ‘status quo’ she wanted to maintain. “Does her ‘status quo’ refer to the situation maintained by the KMT based on the 1992 consensus(九二共識), or President Ma (Ma ying-jeou馬英九)’s ‘three-noes policy’ (No unification, no independence, no use of force)?”

At the meantime, hundreds of Hung’s supporters called the proceedings ‘illegitimate’…

“Hung is the candidate chosen in accordance with the party’s due process. The KMT can only replace Hung if she has committed a crime or issued bribes, but she has done neither.” said Lin Cheng-chieh （林正杰）, an ex-lawmaker.

According to the latest polls, Tsai still has an approval rating of 45.2%, with Chu following behind at 21.9%, and James Soong（宋楚瑜）, the People First Party（親民黨）’s Presidential candidate at 13.8%.

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