Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (
Hsieh said he would conduct a public opinion poll on former premier Su Tseng-chang (
Hsieh said he will also listen to opinions coming "from the president [down] to ordinary people."
Hsieh made the announcement through a recorded message posted on his Web blog yesterday morning.
He said he would be impartial and uphold the nation's interests when choosing his vice presidential partner.
"I will listen to other people's opinions, but I will not let other people decide for me, regardless of who or what they are -- TV news, the media, political talk show hosts, the president, the premier or the [party] chairman," he said.
"The poll results will not be the only criterion, but if there is a big difference between the ratings, I will prioritize a DPP victory because winning the election is the most important goal," he said.
Hsieh said he believes a DPP victory in next year's presidential election would put an end to the nation's "democratic civil war" pitting the DPP against the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and resolve "the independence versus unification controversy."
"If the DPP wins, I believe the pro-localization elements within the KMT will gain the upper hand. The KMT will then be thoroughly localized," he said.
Hsieh has remained tight-lipped about his potential running mate since he won the DPP presidential nomination in May.
His KMT opponent, Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), chose former premier Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) as his running mate on June 23.
Yeh, a Hakka who enjoys support from Hakka groups, has clearly expressed her interest in being Hsieh's running mate while Su said on Friday he had no intention of competing with Yeh.
In his online message, Hsieh commended Yeh for her magnanimity and the thoughtfulness she demonstrated by suggesting that Hsieh turn to polls rather than directly choose her as running mate.
Hsieh said the reason why he did not choose a running mate immediately after the primary was that he wanted to wait until party members had had a chance to calm down from the emotional primary.
In response to Hsieh's blog posting, DPP Legislator Wu Ping-jui (
"I have talked to [former] premier Su on the phone. He made it very clear he would campaign for Hsieh but he did not want any offer of position," Wu said.
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to start construction of its 1.4-nanometer chip manufacturing facilities at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) as early as October, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday, citing the park administration. TSMC acquired land for the second phase of the park’s expansion in Taichung in June. Large cement, construction and facility engineering companies in central Taiwan have reportedly been receiving bids for TSMC-related projects, the report said. Supply-chain firms estimated that the business opportunities for engineering, equipment and materials supply, and back-end packaging and testing could reach as high as
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant
Democratic nations should refrain from attending China’s upcoming large-scale military parade, which Beijing could use to sow discord among democracies, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) said. China is scheduled to stage the parade on Wednesday next week to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. The event is expected to mobilize tens of thousands of participants and prominently showcase China’s military hardware. Speaking at a symposium in Taichung on Thursday, Shen said that Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) recently met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to New Delhi.
RSS