(Reporter Wang Yiche / Taichung report) The Kuomintang has decided to nominate Xie Fuhong, who was born in the water conservancy system, to run for the election of Miaoli County Mayor. The Pan-Blue camp has been in power in Miaoli for 70 years and has never been won by the DPP. In 1993, He Zhihui and Fu Xuepeng in 1997 both left the party to run for election and won the election, which shows that the local faction is stronger than the political party. When planning to quit the Party, I still hope that the Party Central Committee can open up or register for election, otherwise “no one knows what will change before the official registration.”
The election situation in Miaoli is tense. Xie Fuhong, Zhong Dongjin, Xu Dingzhen, a candidate for the DPP, and Song Guoding, a candidate for the mayor of Miaoli, formed the top four. Local people pointed out that if Zhong Dongjin, who is strong at the grassroots level, decides to give it a go in the future, the plot will be like the case of Zhang Rongwei, the speaker of Yunlin County, who left the party and elected the county magistrate in 1999. In the long run, they have also been involved in the disadvantages of the construction of garbage dumps in the two places to varying degrees.”
Local sources said that once Zhong Dongjin decides to leave the party and run for election, he will be the first current Kuomintang speaker in Miaoli political history to leave the party and run for election. He said that although He Zhihui and Fu Xuepeng served as vice-speakers, they won the election respectively from legislators and provincial councillors, and later won the county magistrate by virtue of their factional strength. Local factions and “there is a precedent for leaving the party and running for elections” let go.
Politicians have analyzed that if Zhong Dongjin leaves the party to run for election, he will become a “copy” of Zhang Rongwei, who left the party and elected county magistrate in 1999. Zhang Rongwei, who is strong at the grassroots level in Yunlin, was elected as a county councillor with a high vote in 1990 and became the speaker. In 1997, he challenged the county chief for the first time and lost. He won the election and was re-elected in 2001 as a member of the Kuomintang.
Politicians say that, compared with Zhang Rongwei, Zhong Dongjin was elected as a member of parliament at the age of 51 in 2014. He was re-elected in 2018 and became the speaker. At the beginning of 2021, he took the initiative to show his determination to challenge the throne, but because of the dark history of the past. Let the party chairman Zhu Lilun be cruel to cut, if the central government really forces him to be like Zhang Rongwei, leave the party as the Kuomintang speaker to run for county mayor, the future development is a topic that the party central committee must seriously consider.
However, following careful comparison, Zhang Rongwei and Zhong Dongjin have some coincidences. In 2004, Zhang Rongwei was involved in the Linnei garbage incineration case and was finally sentenced to 8 years in prison and deprived of public power for 4 years. In March this year, “Ling Media” exclusively broke Zhong Dongjin. In 2006, he helped the former speaker to collect public relations fees of 1,000 yuan. 10,000 yuan to assist in the construction of Tongxiao Landfill, but the final construction case failed to return 5 million yuan, but Zhong received a payment order before the death of the former speaker in 2018. The lawsuit brought the bribery to light.
During the court hearing, Zhong Dongjin revealed that he was the former speaker with white gloves. The court also certified that Zhong signed a fake contract to cover up the money received by the former speaker, but it was judged that Zhong did not need to repay the money. However, the white-glove case violated the Corruption Offences Regulations, and the Miaoli prosecutors launched an investigation in March.
Local people analyzed that Zhong Dongjin’s challenge to the throne of county magistrate can be seen as a comeback of the local faction. If he runs as a non-party member in the future, “even people from the green camp can be attracted”, and it may even break the traditional political ecology of the Liu faction and the Huang faction in Miaoli. In the future, whether the positions or attitudes of Miaoli political figures from the Kuomintang such as Xu Yaochang will change will become the focus of observation.
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