Su announces his run; Legislators extend their claws

Now that Premier Su Chen-chang (蘇貞昌) has announced his intentions to run for President in '08, there are three contenders (the other two being Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) and Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃). The only person expected to announce who hasn't said anything yet is VP Annette Lu (呂秀蓮).

On the KMT side, Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has officially announced, but Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) hasn't said anything yet. The KMT will probably handle the situation internally for a while longer before deciding how to go forward. And despite many rumors, nobody has said if they will run for the KMT chairmanship yet.

Now, for the legislative side, which is starting to get nasty now that the districts are finalized. For that reason, this will be a pretty long post.

With the number of seats being cut in half, half of the legislators are losing their jobs anyway. That means intra-party fighting. When parties are trying to cooperate, like the KMT and PFP, or possibly the TSU and DPP, things get even more cut throat. CNA had an article today mentioning some of these infighting issues.

Out of 12 districts in Taipei County, at least four of them have multiple KMT candidates interesting in running. Specifically, Lee Sen-Zong (李顯榮) and Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) both want to run in Damshui/Beihai 淡水北海; Lin Te-fu (林德福) and Hong Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) both want Yunghe 永和市; current legislators Chang Ching-chung (張慶忠) and Lee Ching-hua (李慶華), as well as former legislator Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), want Jhonghe 中和市; and in Sindian/Wenshan 新店文山, legislators Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才) and Joanna Lei (雷倩) have both expressed intent to run. Liu Shen-liang (劉盛良) is also expected to want to run there.

This is a serious problem for the KMT because they'll have to think of a way to keep some of these legislators from insisting on running as independents if they don't get a nomination (bribe them with another position seems to be the method that is most likely to bring success). These are all KMT stronghold districts (which is why the legislators want them; safe seats) that should be easy wins, but a split could make it harder for them and may give seats to the DPP unexpectedly.

One tool the parties are going to use to handle this is that for the 34 at large seats (excluding those seats guaranteed to Aborigines), at least half of the nominations from each party must be women. That means the female legislators can be packed into the at large seats and free up some room in the districts. Already, rumors fly around that Keelung City's Hsu Shao-ping (徐少萍), Taipei County's Hong Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), Taoyuan's Chu Fong-chi (朱鳳芝), Yunlin's Hsu Shu-po (許舒博) and Changhua's Lin Tsang-min (林滄敏) will all get those nominations. But those women are doing their best to dispel such rumors, because the decision will be made by the Party's Central Committee and because they don't want their support base to erode before they even get a nomination.

Further, there are questions about the PFP-KMT agreement to nominate only one candidate per district jointly. Can they really pull it off in this situation? Add to the at that the KMT hopes to leave some districts to the "non-partisans" who vote with the blues, and the squeeze is even tighter.

For example, in Kaohsiung City's Zuoying/Nanzih district 左營楠梓, both Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) and Chang Hsien-Yao (張顯耀) want to run. Non-partisan but blue legislator Yen Chin-piao (顏清標) and Chi Kuo-tung (紀國棟) insist on running in Taichung County Dist. 2. Further, Chiang Lien-Fu (江連福) and Feng Ting-kuo (馮定國) are strugglying to be nominated in Taichung County Dist. 3. And for the three districts of Taichung City, 4 legislators have expressed interest: Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕), Tsai Chin-lung (蔡錦隆), Hwang Yih-jiau (黃義交) and Shen Chin-hwei (沈智慧).

According to legislators on both sides, there is some consensus between the PFP and KMT that if they are unable to agree with each other on a plan, they will just have to nominate seperately.

(BTW, the article I got this information from is titled 內部廝殺加藍橘兄弟相爭 藍委人人自危 .)