Taiwan: will dark horse pushing cross-strait union upend two-way race for KMT chair?

Chang Ya-chung, 66, has won over ‘deep blue’ Kuomintang members with his hardline pro-unification stance and scorn for Taiwan-centric rivals

As Chang also pulls ahead in opinion polls, the question remains whether he would make a viable presidential candidate were he to become KMT chief

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Supporters of the Kuomintang’s presidential candidate at an election rally in Taipei on January 9, 2020. The party votes in a new chairman on Saturday. Photo: Reuters

Published: 8:00pm, 20 Sep 2021Updated: 9:56pm, 20 Sep 2021

Days before Taiwan’s main opposition Kuomintang party elects a new leader, a hardline pro-unification candidate has dramatically emerged as the front runner, to seriously threaten what was to have been a two-way race between the incumbent and former chairman on Saturday.

Four candidates are vying for the KMT’s top post and, even until late last month, all eyes were still on the fierce campaign between ex-chairman and New Taipei mayor Eric Chu Li-luan, 60, and incumbent chairman Johnny Chiang, 49, who is also a legislator.

But now, thanks to a September 4 televised debate and a controversial KMT decision to discipline him, NGO chief Chang Ya-chung, who is little known outside Taiwan, has successfully established himself as a tragic hero fighting to steer the century-old party back to its mainland China-centric road.

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If the KMT were to hold the election now, 66-year-old Chang would emerge victorious, the latest opinion polls indicate.

Survey results released by the TVBS cable news network on Thursday showed Chang, head of the NGO Sun Yat-sen School, had a support rate of 30.6 per cent, leading Chu by 3.1 percentage points and trumping incumbent Chiang by nearly 18 percentage points.

Trailing far behind was former Changhua County magistrate Cho Po-yuan, 56, with a support rate of just 0.9 per cent.

Polls by TVBS in early August had shown Chang still trailing with just 4.8 per cent, but later that month his support rate soared to 15.4 per cent.

Taiwan: will dark horse pushing cross-strait union upend two-way race for KMT chair?

Chang Ya-chung, 66, has won over ‘deep blue’ Kuomintang members with his hardline pro-unification stance and scorn for Taiwan-centric rivals As Chang also pulls ahead in opinion polls, the question remains whether he would make a viable presidential candidate were he to become KMT chief

Chang Ya-chung, 66, has won over ‘deep blue’ Kuomintang members with his hardline pro-unification stance and scorn for Taiwan-centric rivals

As Chang also pulls ahead in opinion polls, the question remains whether he would make a viable presidential candidate were he to become KMT chief