Chen wins, Lien demands recount
Incumbent President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and running mate Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) have won the election by 2,9518 votes. Central Election Commission Chairman George Huang (黃石城) made a formal announcement of the results at 9:20 pm. The Chen-Lu ticket won a total of 6,471,970 votes while the opposition ticket, featuring Lien Chan (連戰) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)and James Soong (宋楚瑜) of the People First Party (PFP), won 6,442,452 votes, Huang said.
The turnout for the presidential election was 80.28 percent.
Responding to the opposition demand for invalidation of the results and a recount of the votes, Huang said the opposition must file an application with the court in accordance with the Election and Recall Law.
Speaking to crowds of supporters in front of the KMT headquarters earlier, Lien and Soong called the election "unfair", citing that the election was held under suspicious circumstances.
They were referring to the assassination attempt on Chen and Lu on Friday, one day before the vote. Chen and Lu suffered gunshot wounds in the incident in southern Taiwan. The incident is believed to have swayed some voters to
Chen's camp.
Chen won the election by a margin of around 0.2 percent. Lien and Soong ran separately in the previous presidential election in 2000 and won a combined 58 percent. A Lien-Soong joint ticket this time meant an extremely tough race for Chen.
In his victory speech, Chen thanked the opposition for its "criticism and instructions" and vowed to listen to different opinions to promote Taiwan's democracy, solidarity and harmony. Chen did not respond to the opposition demand of a recount in his speech.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
RSS