ELECTION 2024/'Major reforms' needed for KMT to return to power: Ex-VP candidate

Taipei, Jan. 15 (CNA) The Kuomintang (KMT) needs to undertake "major reforms" and clarify its messaging if it wants to win future elections, Jaw Shau-kong (趙少康), the vice presidential candidate on the KMT's ticket in Saturday's presidential election, said Monday.

In a Facebook post, Jaw, a former lawmaker and well-known television host, reflected on his 50-day run as New Taipei Mayor Hou Yu-ih's (侯友宜) running mate, a role he said he "never imagined" he would find himself in.

The reason he accepted the offer to join Hou on the KMT ticket was to remove the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) from power, he said, while conceding that the chances of doing so became much smaller after talks on a joint ticket with Taiwan People's Party (TPP) candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) fell through.

Jaw said the experience of running for vice president was "10 times harder" than being at the top of the ticket since he had to make sure he was always on the same page with Hou and was not stealing the spotlight.

If he had been at the top of the ticket, he would have given himself freer rein and tried to bring "more excitement" to the campaign, he said.

Reflecting on the Jan. 13 election, Jaw said he originally estimated the KMT could consolidate the 5.52 million votes won by the KMT and the 600,000 votes won by the People First Party in the 2020 presidential election.

Even adjusting for voters who died over the past four years, Jaw said, he thought that if the KMT won 5.8 million votes, it would have a chance of winning.

As it happened, the KMT received only 4.67 million presidential votes, falling 1.13 million short of his estimate, due to voters either not turning out or opting to instead support the TPP's Ko, Jaw said.

DPP candidate Lai Ching-te (賴清德) won the election with around 5.586 million votes, or 40 percent of total votes cast, followed by the KMT with 33.5 percent and the TPP with 26.5 percent.

On the lessons he took from the loss, Jaw said that if the KMT wants to win future elections, it will need to return to the values on which it was founded, becoming more "idealistic, forward-looking, revolutionary, and even incorporating a bit of socialist [messaging] on wealth equality."

Structurally, the party's membership needs to better reflect Taiwan's demographics, and its nomination system needs to be democratized and made more transparent, Jaw said.

"If the party doesn't undertake major, decisive reforms, and clearly state how it wants to lead the country's future development and direction, it will receive fewer and fewer votes, making it increasingly difficult to win an election," Jaw said.