TAICHUNG (Taiwan News) — There has been a lot of talk of a revolt to replace New Taipei Mayor Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜) as the party’s presidential candidate at the Kuomintang’s (KMT) National Congress on Sunday (July 23) and replace him with someone else.
If a petition signed by at least 100 of the delegates is submitted before 10 a.m. on the day of the Congress, then it will be added to the agenda put up for a vote.
There are various ideas being floated, including replacing Hou with Foxconn founder Terry Gou (郭台銘), the party’s 2020 nominee and former Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) and even backing the Taiwan People’s Party’s (TPP) nominee former Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲). However, a proposal to hold a primary to replace Hou would be much more likely to pass as it would unite all the anti-Hou factions.
Some also want to oust party Chair Eric Chu (朱立倫), who picked Hou as the candidate without consulting the party members. They suggest holding another party election or appointing Chang Ya-chung (張亞中), a pro-China figure, as the interim chair. A KMT spokesperson said the party constitution does not allow such a move, but others disagree.
I looked into it, and it would appear otherwise: The party constitution says the National Congress is at the top of the party hierarchy above all else, and Article 8 includes: “The right to elect and be elected to positions within the Party, and the right to vote in a recall election.” The Congress is being organized by Chu and his team, so if a petition is submitted it could lead to an interesting showdown.
Logistics, logistics, logistics
The most basic question is: Will any petitions be submitted at all?
There will likely be 1,000 to 2,000 delegates attending the Congress. To get 100 signatures would probably mean between 150 to 250 initial exploratory calls, with in many cases follow-up calls required.
Not everyone they contact will be willing to take the risk of appearing disloyal to the party, and will turn them down. Others simply may not attend the Congress at all. It’s not inconceivable they would need to make as many 500 calls, which is no easy task.
Add on top of that the logistics of physically collecting all the signatures. All this suggests that it is not too likely any petitions will be submitted at all, but if any are, it will send a very powerful message that these people are very committed.
Of the movements to replace Hou and Chu, I think the push to remove Chu is less likely to succeed. It is true that there are legitimate questions and concerns being raised in the party about the opaque “black box” processes and methods he employed to pick Hou as the party’s presidential candidate, and he has made a fair number of enemies during his tenure.
The big question is: Who would replace him? There are few candidates with his experience and ability to do the job full time and he still appears to have the backing of key figures in the party with large followings, such as former President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Han Kuo-yu — though if either turned against him all bets would be off.
Chu also delivered a huge landslide victory for the party in last year’s local elections. While Hou’s presidential campaign is floundering, there are also legislative candidates to consider.
Strategically, it would probably be a bad move for the party to dump him now. However, if he is, it would be a dramatic development.
2015 redux
The movement to dump Hou is louder and has at least three factions behind it supporting Gou, Han and Ko. There is also a precedent for replacing a presidential candidate, ironically enough, when Eric Chu was last chair in 2015.
At the time the party removed Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) as its candidate and installed Chu in her place. Hung’s poll ratings at the time were averaging in the mid-teens.
In all but one recent poll, Hou has been in the mid-to-upper teens, averaging around 17%. That’s barely above where Hung was at, but in a hypothetical four-way presidential race that includes Terry Gou, most polling shows Hou sinking to below 15%.
Hou has been polling at the bottom of all three-way matchups for months now, though in a four-way race in some polls he comes in higher than Gou, in others he is still last. It’s embarrassing for their party to be so far behind the TPP’s Ko.
It’s also extremely frustrating for the more deep blue elements in the party that absolutely loath the “Green Terror” DPP administration. They feel it is their right to return to power, especially since there has been a transition between ruling parties every eight years since the year 2000.
They are also very concerned that Hou isn’t a strong enough to confer any star power to boost the party member's fortunes in down-ticket legislative district races, or to boost the party list vote for party assigned seats in the legislature. In short, they are afraid he will drag down the entire party with him.
Formidable will and power
To win, however, they’ll have to overcome the formidable will and power of Chu, who has already stared down multiple rebellions. Chu is adamantly sticking with Hou.
However, he and his team have reportedly been working the phones to ensure delegates back Hou. That they are resorting to that does suggest some nervousness on Chu’s part.
It does appear that Chu has secured Han Kuo-yu’s backing, but only last minute. Han’s office has now released a statement confirming he will attend the party congress, and would “stand shoulder to shoulder” with the presidential and legislative candidates to “defeat the DPP, and protect the Republic of China.”
However, that it was sent by his office, not announced personally on Facebook as he normally does, and that he didn’t mention Hou by name should make Chu and Hou a little nervous.
That might be a signal to his followers, perhaps to vote against Hou, or perhaps that they are free to do what they want without his disapproval. We will not know until the day of the event.
Seasoned Taiwan politics watchers are probably wondering, why no mention of the powerful Huang Fuhsing (黃復興) military veteran’s bloc? It’s a great question, and one I very much wish I had the answer to, as they have been pretty quiet, so it’s hard to know where they stand.
Because any attempt at pulling together a petition, or petitions for the Congress are likely to be happening behind closed doors, it’s hard to say whether anyone has been organized enough to pull it together. There is motivation to do it, but has there been the commitment?
