Sun Yat-sen School head Chang Ya-chung announces bid for KMT chair

Taipei, May 22 (CNA) Chang Ya-chung (張亞中), head of the Sun Yat-sen School, announced Thursday he will run for chair of the main opposition Kuomintang (KMT).

Announcing his candidacy at a press conference, Chang said that if elected, he will appoint former Legislative Yuan speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) as the KMT's representative for dialogue with the Chinese Communist Party.

His ultimate goal is for Taiwan to become a "global no-war peace zone" under the guidance of a future "cross-strait peace agreement," Chang said.

It was reported that Chang paid a visit to Wang recently for discussions of issues related to the party chairmanship election, during which Wang told Chang he had expressed support for Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) to run for the party leader position.

The KMT will hold its chairmanship election this year.

The current party Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) has not yet made public whether he will seek re-election.

Lu, who is highly anticipated within the party to be a potential choice as party chair, has not yet made her intentions clear.

So far, only former Changhua County Magistrate Cho Po-yuan (卓伯源), Sun Chien-ping (孫健萍), a member of the Kuomintang's Central Standing Committee, and Chang have expressed their intention to run in the chairperson race.

At the news conference Thursday, Chang said if elected, he will promote digital transition, reform party management mechanisms and establish a unified system of authority for presidential elections.

This includes requiring that the presidential candidate be selected through a primary, Chang said.

According to Chang, under the planned system, once the party's presidential candidate is confirmed, the party chairman should hand over all party authority related to the election campaigns to the candidate in order to use the party's overall strength to win back power.

He also proposed aligning the party chairperson's term with the presidential term specified in the Constitution so as to let the KMT presidential candidate who wins the election automatically become party chair after taking office.

If the candidate fails to win, the process to elect a new party chairman should begin the day after the presidential election, Chang said.