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
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS