The other day I was down at the National Immigration Office in lovely Banqiao, when I saw this self-important gentleman shove his way past the crowd to harangue the poor woman on the desk.
He was wearing that little waistcoat so beloved of the jumped-up politicos here, and I thought that he was some local councilman come to pull some rank for one of his buddies. Then when I got a good look at his vest it said 台灣國民黨 (Taiwanese Nationalist Party), with a green badge which had a red image of Taiwan with the KMT emblem in the middle. On the other side it said 主席 (Chairman) with the name 甘乃迪, which I could swear is Kennedy (of the John F. variety?).
He had a couple of goons with him and put me very much in mind of the Dear Leader Kim Il-sung - same short stature, lifts in his shoes, crappy haircut - just missing the military jumpsuit and the sunglasses.
Very surreal. He was definitely ordering people about like a local big-wig, but surely this is some kind of scam - I mean, Kennedy? Come on.
The Taiwan Guomindang – Taiwan’s 127th political party, as of May 27, according to that party’s website.
My guess would be that this is indeed a sort of scam, with the president (sole real member?) hoping to cash in if the Zhongguo Guomindang – the Chinese Nationalist Party, as the Taipei Times never tires of reminding us – ever rethinks the need to change its name.
And, until then, there’s always the chance that if the Taiwan KMT gets someone on the ballot they can siphon some votes from KMT backers who don’t pay close attention to the ballot or are naive enough to think that the real KMT must be the Taiwan one. Not enough votes to win the race, of course. But in Taiwan the more votes a candidate gets the more money his campaign receives from the government.
Also, of course, the guy can act like a big shot because he’s the president.
Thanks for the info, cranky. But you didn’t answer the most important point.
Kennedy?
Actually there have been similar cases in England - one in my home county of Devon. A fellow called Richard Huggett stood for election in a European seat as a Literal Democrat (as opposed to the more well-known Liberal Democrats) and polled 10,000 votes after doing no campaigning, thereby denying the real Liberal Democrat candidate victory. The result stood but the law was changed afterwards to prevent similar shenanigans.
Taffy, according to the Party’s own website, its official English name is Taiwa[color=brown]m[/color] National Party (TNP) – I kid you not. Weird since it chose twkmt.org as its website URL.
EDIT: Here’s a quote from the Chairman himself: 我很崇拜美國總統, 以前那個甘乃迪總統, 還有甘地的精神, 我就把名字改成甘乃迪.
So it is JFK! Now I feel privileged to have shared the same stretch of pavement with him.[/quote]
He’s not only JFK (甘乃迪), he also has the spirit of Ghandi (甘地). Ironically, both were assassinated at the height of their political leadership.
Maybe they are waiting for Taiwan unification with the mainland, so that they can begin anew their TI agenda on the mainland. I can see it now, empty accusations of post-unification Chinese as being not as Chinese when compared to the pre-unification Chinese.
