KMT chairman announces resignation after election defeat

Taipei, Jan. 11 (CNA) Main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) Chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) announced Saturday that he will resign en masse with other top-ranking executive party members next week because of the crushing defeat the party suffered in both the presidential and legislative elections.

All top-ranking KMT officials, including vice chairmen and secretary-general, will tender their resignations at the party's Central Standing Committee next week to shoulder responsibility for the failure, Wu said at the KMT headquarters.

The KMT lost not just the presidential race with a nearly 20 percent margin between its candidate, Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), and incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of the Democratic Progressive Party, but also failed to take more than half of the 113 legislative seats, a goal Wu had vowed to achieve.

At Saturday's press conference, Wu expressed hope that Tsai will continue to create an environment in which Taiwanese people can live and work in peace and contentment.

He also said it is regrettable that the KMT failed to meet its expectations in the first-past-the-post part of the legislative race and expressed the need for improvement in the future.

In a post on his Facebook page, KMT Vice Chairman Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said there is nothing else for it but for the party to "destroy and rebuild."

"It's the only way to have a chance of standing up again from the ruins," he wrote.

He expressed doubts over internal reforms and solidarity the party has repeatedly pledged to accomplish over the years whenever it suffered political setbacks, saying that reforms must start from the core of the leadership.

Wu, 71, was vice president from 2012 to 2016 under the administration of former President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), and was elected to chair the KMT in January 2017.