The ruling DPP yesterday closed its registration for prospective legislative candidates. It aims to nominate 80 candidates out of 146 registered hopefuls for the year-end legislative election.
A total of 117 legislative candidates, including 31 nominees registered for legislators at large (
DPP Chairman Frank Hsieh (
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
"But there should be no problem for the DPP to hold onto its current 67 seats," Chen added.
Endorsing Chen's views, Chin Heng-wei (
"Anyone who wants to run [for public office] is inevitably supported by certain factions within the party. This does not help the party to increase its votes," Chin said. He therefore added that it would be a tough fight if the DPP were to win half of the 225 legislative seats.
Lee Yong-ping (李永萍), a former DPP member but now director of the People First Party's (PFP) legislative caucus, said that the DPP's prospective candidates were competitive since former members of the National Assembly, such as Liu I-te (劉一德), and incumbent government officials, including Lo Wen-chia (羅文嘉) and Hsiao Bikhim (蕭美琴) would all participate in the election. Most of them have the advantage of enjoying high popularity.
She suggested, however, that the election would be a strategically tricky one for DPP candidates.
"To avoid being connected with the DPP government's failures, candidates will have to show a degree of independence from the party. But at the same time, they will need to ally themselves with the party in order to take advantage of its resources," Lee said.
Lee said she believed that the candidates to be fielded by the DPP had good social images and were well-qualified to be members of the legislature. Still, she was not worried that the DPP would outshine the PFP in terms of election performance since "supporters of the DPP and the PFP rarely overlap."
Meanwhile, the DPP's survey center yesterday completed its public polls for candidates for Tainan and Kaohsiung county commissioners. The poll score accounts for 70 percent of candidates' primary scores.
A total of 28 candidates had previously registered to run for the commissioner and mayoral elections in 14 counties and cities.
A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck off Yilan at 11:05pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter was located at sea, about 32.3km east of Yilan County Hall, at a depth of 72.8km, CWA data showed There were no immediate reports of damage. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Yilan County area on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. It measured 4 in other parts of eastern, northern and central Taiwan as well as Tainan, and 3 in Kaohsiung and Pingtung County, and 2 in Lienchiang and Penghu counties and 1
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE: Beijing would likely intensify public opinion warfare in next year’s local elections to prevent Lai from getting re-elected, the ‘Yomiuri Shimbun’ said Internal documents from a Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company indicated that China has been using the technology to intervene in foreign elections, including propaganda targeting Taiwan’s local elections next year and presidential elections in 2028, a Japanese newspaper reported yesterday. The Institute of National Security of Vanderbilt University obtained nearly 400 pages of documents from GoLaxy, a company with ties to the Chinese government, and found evidence that it had apparently deployed sophisticated, AI-driven propaganda campaigns in Hong Kong and Taiwan to shape public opinion, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported. GoLaxy provides insights, situation analysis and public opinion-shaping technology by conducting network surveillance
Taiwan is gearing up to celebrate the New Year at events across the country, headlined by the annual countdown and Taipei 101 fireworks display at midnight. Many of the events are to be livesteamed online. See below for lineups and links: Taipei Taipei’s New Year’s Party 2026 is to begin at 7pm and run until 1am, with the theme “Sailing to the Future.” South Korean girl group KARA is headlining the concert at Taipei City Hall Plaza, with additional performances by Amber An (安心亞), Nick Chou (周湯豪), hip-hop trio Nine One One (玖壹壹), Bii (畢書盡), girl group Genblue (幻藍小熊) and more. The festivities are to
AFTERMATH: The Taipei City Government said it received 39 minor incident reports including gas leaks, water leaks and outages, and a damaged traffic signal A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck off Taiwan’s northeastern coast late on Saturday, producing only two major aftershocks as of yesterday noon, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The limited aftershocks contrast with last year’s major earthquake in Hualien County, as Saturday’s earthquake occurred at a greater depth in a subduction zone. Saturday’s earthquake struck at 11:05pm, with its hypocenter about 32.3km east of Yilan County Hall, at a depth of 72.8km. Shaking was felt in 17 administrative regions north of Tainan and in eastern Taiwan, reaching intensity level 4 on Taiwan’s seven-tier seismic scale, the CWA said. In Hualien, the
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