Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) said yesterday that she is determined to stay on as Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairwoman, making a surprising about-face after having vowed earlier in the day to disregard pleas from DPP members that she reconsider her decision to step down.
Although Lu had said that she would not attend a meeting of the DPP's Central Standing Committee yesterday to discuss possible candidates to take over as acting party head after she offered to resign on Monday, the vice president announced that she would attend after all.
According to DPP Secretary-General Lee Yi-yang (
"But Lu accepted the committee members' reassurances of goodwill and decided to stay," Lee told a news conference after the meeting, which had lasted for three hours.
"We didn't vote about asking Lu to stay, and nobody opposed it. There was consensus among the committee members to ask Vice President Lu to stay," Lee said.
Wearing a red coat and a pair of sunglasses, Lu left the meeting with a smile.
"I thank the Central Standing Committee members for their goodwill," was her only response to reporters' questions.
Lee said that the DPP has asked committee members not to issue comments to the media about the sudden change.
"We think that many media outlets have been misrepresenting the process of recommending a new chairperson, so this time we will make a concerted effort to clarify the process and lay rumors of manipulation to rest. We therefore resolved that members should not comment on the discussions," Lee said.
He added that the DPP will elect a new chairperson on Jan. 15.
Party members who are interested in running for the chairmanship will be able to register from tomorrow until Dec. 20, and a review of candidates' qualifications will be held on Dec. 21. The result of the election will be announced on Jan. 18, Lee said.
A televised debate will be held among the candidates, he said.
Before announcing her surprise decision yesterday, Lu had maintained that she would not stay on as acting chairwoman, and would disregard committee members' pleas to stay.
According to committee member Chou Ching-yu (
Chou was the first to ask Lu to stay, and committee member Cheng Po-ching (鄭寶清) later echoed Chou's remarks, DPP Legislator Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said.
Lu wiped away tears at one point while Chou was asking her to stay on as acting leader, Ker said.
Before the meeting, Presidential Office Secretary-General Yu Shyi-kun said that the DPP is facing huge obstacles, and selflessness and unity is the only way for the party to make any progress.
"As long as we are united and unselfish, reforms will not be far away," Yu said.
Also see story:
Lu's about-face gets mixed reaction
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
PREPAREDNESS: Given the difficulty of importing ammunition during wartime, the Ministry of National Defense said it would prioritize ‘coproduction’ partnerships A newly formed unit of the Marine Corps tasked with land-based security operations has recently replaced its aging, domestically produced rifles with more advanced, US-made M4A1 rifles, a source said yesterday. The unnamed source familiar with the matter said the First Security Battalion of the Marine Corps’ Air Defense and Base Guard Group has replaced its older T65K2 rifles, which have been in service since the late 1980s, with the newly received M4A1s. The source did not say exactly when the upgrade took place or how many M4A1s were issued to the battalion. The confirmation came after Chinese-language media reported
RSS