Can Johnny Chiang save Taiwan’s troubled Kuomintang party?

He may have won the KMT’s leadership election, but the 48-year-old politician has only 14 months to resolve its financial and election woes

If Chiang is to be anything more than a transitional leader he must win the public’s trust and re-establish strong ties with Beijing, observers say

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The Kuomintang’s new chairman Johnny Chiang has many challenges to face over the next 14 months. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 10:45am, 15 Mar 2020Updated: 5:59pm, 15 Mar 2020

After Johnny Chiang easy victory in his party’s leadership election, Taiwan is asking if he is the man to save the island’s century-old Kuomintang (KMT).

The 48-year-old, US-educated politician defeated his sole opponent – former party vice-chairman and Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin – in a poll that saw a record low voter turnout of less than 36 per cent.

Chiang has been in politics for just a decade and is largely unknown outside Taiwan. But the question now is whether he can save the troubled party, which suffered a humiliating defeat in January’s presidential and legislative elections, and is facing serious financial troubles and dwindling public support.

And with anti-China sentiment on the rise in Taiwan, Chiang is also facing a dilemma over whether to ditch the decades-old political platform known as the 1992 consensus, which for almost 30 years has allowed the self-ruled island to maintain a functioning relationship with Beijing.

Chiang took up his first political post in 2010 as head of the now defunct Government Information Office under then president Ma Ying-jeou. On Monday he was sworn in as head of the KMT, replacing Wu Den-yih who resigned after the party’s poor showing in the January polls.