Hung to Convoke 2nd Elders’ Meeting on KMT Party Affairs Today: Ma to Attend

Hung to Convoke 2^nd Elders’ Meeting on KMT Party Affairs Today: Ma to Attend

Source: All Taipei Newspapers

October 20, 2016

Yesterday, during a regular Central Standing Committee meeting, KMT Chairperson Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) stated that she would invite former KMT Chairmen Lien Chan (連戰), Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Wu Po-hsiung (吳伯雄), and Eric Chu (朱立倫) to the KMT headquarters on October 20 to discuss KMT party affairs again, such as the promotion of a cross-Strait peace agreement which had been incorporated into the new KMT party platform, provoking a controversy within the party. At first, Ma’s Retirement Office stated that Ma would not attend the meeting owing to a conflict of schedule.

However, Ma’s Retirement Office later stated that Hung personally phoned Ma in the evening to invite him to the meeting. Ma, for concerns that the media would read too much into his absence, decided to rearrange his schedule and attend the meeting at the KMT headquarters.

According to Ma’s Retirement Office, Hung promised Ma on the phone that she would also attend a banquet Ma planned to hold on October 24 in order to highlight the party’s unity. Ma plans to invite all deputy chairmen and cadres during his terms of office as party chairman to the banquet to discuss how to assist the party march out of the current predicament.

According to a United Daily News report, if all the deputy chairmen Ma invited attend the banquet, this will be the largest meeting of party elders since the KMT became an opposition party again following the general elections earlier this year. If Hung attends the banquet, she will have to clarify her stance on the promotion of a cross-Strait peace agreement in the new KMT party platform and the “1992 Consensus/one China, different interpretations.” Therefore, Ma’s banquet will attract even more attention than Hung’s meeting today.

Besides Ma, Lien, Wu, and Chu have also agreed to attend Hung’s meeting today.

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