By Chris Wang / Staff Reporter
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) might suffer a greater loss in the next presidential election if it decides to carry out a “generational change” within the party’s ranks, former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) said yesterday.
“We had a generational change for the recent presidential election and the result was an 800,000 vote loss. I don’t know what the losing margin would be if the party decides to continue to move in the same direction,” she said.
The former vice president made the comments in response to questions about the party’s next chairperson during a press conference she held to discuss the controversy over the importation of US beef.
DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who lost to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) by nearly 800,000 votes in last month’s presidential election, is scheduled to step down from as chairperson on March 1.
In 2008, the DPP presidential ticket of Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) and Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) lost to Ma and Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) by 2.2 million votes.
Lu said the DPP needed to pursue a path of having the elder party members “pass down the party’s heritage,” rather than a total generational change.
Lu urged the DPP to seize this current opportunity to transform itself into a party devoid of factionalism since there are no elections in the next two-and-a-half years
She said the development of the party in the past had been plagued by “too many calculations on individuals and elections.”
“People will not support a party that only cares about the political benefits of some of its own members. A party will not become a ruling party if it does not care about the public’s interests,” Lu said
She said she would support anyone who dared to revolutionize the DPP and end the party’s notorious factionalism.