Chang Li-shan quits run for Yunlin chief in shock for KMT

Liu Chien-kuo of the Democratic Progressive Party won the seat in the Legislative Yuan vacated by disqualified Kuomintang lawmaker Chang Suo-wen by a landslide to start a close one-two punch blow to President Ma Ying-jeou, who insisted on fielding a clean new face rather than Chang's father.

Chang Keng-hui, the Kuomintang candidate Ma nominated, was supported by Chang Yung-wei, former magistrate of Yunlin fired after corruption conviction in 2005. He served a one-year sentence.

The former magistrate is an elder brother of Chang Li-shan, who also campaigned for the routed Kuomintang nomineee.

“My brother and I were maligned for rigging the by-election,” Chang Li-shan told a hastily called press conference at Touliu.

She charged Chang Hui-yuan and his son Suo-wen with falsely accusing her family of “trying to win all (posts).” She was a Kuomintang lawmaker. The family made every effort to get Chang Keng-hui win, and she was running for magistrate of the southern Taiwan county.

“After long consultation with my brother, I decided to withdraw from the magistracy election,” she said in tears.

Her eleventh-hour announcement stunned the Kuomintang leadership.

Voters will go to the polls to elect 17 magistrates and mayors across the country on December 5. But election commissions have to start issuing applications forms for candidacy on October 1. Registration of candidacy will be completed between October 5 and 9.

The Kuomintang, which just elected a new central committee on Sunday, was taken aback. “All of us learned of Chang's withdrawal from a TV news conference she held,” said a highly placed ruling party source.

“We are having more than enough trouble getting ready for the registration of our candidates in quite a number of counties,” the source said. “She's adding insult to damage,” he complained.

Intraparty rivalries have made it difficult to field Kuomintang candidates in the counties of Hualien, Pingtung, Hsinchu and Taitung. A few other magistrates, including Lu Kuo-hua of Yilan, are likely to lose their reelection bid.

“And now we are compelled to name a new candidate for magistrate of Yunlin in less than a week,” the source lamented.

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