Former vice premier Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took nearly 60 percent of the votes in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairperson race yesterday to become the party's first chairwoman.
About 129,000 of the party’s 250,000 eligible members voted in yesterday’s election, making the turnout 51.7 percent. Tsai triumphed with 73,892 votes, or 57.1 percent, while former senior presidential adviser, 82-year-old Koo Kwang-ming (辜寬敏), received 48,882 votes, or 37.8 percent.
Legislator Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮), who dropped out of the race to throw his support behind Koo, received 6,530 votes as his withdrawal was anounced too late for his name to be erased from the ballots.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Tsai topped Koo in most constituencies except for Chiayi City, Penghu, Hualien, Chuanghua and with overseas party members.
Outgoing DPP chairman Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), accompanied by Tsai and Koo, held a press conference at DPP headquarters in Taipei to announce Tsai’s victory.
“With more than 73,000 party members voting for her, Miss Tsai Ing-wen has officially been elected the new chairwoman of the party,” Hsieh said. “I would like to offer my congratulations to her.”
Koo conceded defeat immediately and congratulated Tsai.
The chairwoman-elect vowed to overcome all challenges.
“As the party chair race comes to an end, our challenges are just beginning,” Tsai said. “After [tomorrow], we will become an opposition party, and will have no more resources — but I am determined to lead the party into a new age.”
She said that under her leadership the DPP would work more closely with civic groups and grassroots organizations.
“The DPP will protect Taiwan’s sovereignty, its democracy and insist on social justice,” she said. “I’m confident that we can restore the public’s faith in the party and the DPP will rise again.”
Asked about power struggles and conflicts among the party’s many factions, Tsai said she was not concerned.
“Of course there were conflicts during the [party chair] race, but there were no wounds,” she said. “And as a party that’s going out of power, I don’t think there will be any power struggles. Instead, there will be only shouldering of responsibility — and we welcome anyone to join us to share that responsibility.”
Tsai said she would seek advice from inside and outside the party.
“I will start by talking to Koo and Chen Shih-meng [陳師孟], since they’ve presented many great ideas during the election campaign,” Tsai said.
Chen was the top campaigner for Koo during the party chair race.
As former chairwoman of the Mainland Affairs Council, Tsai said she would pay close attention to the new Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government’s cross-strait policies.
“We’ll remind them when their policies lack careful consideration and we’ll criticize them when they make mistakes,” Tsai said.
Immediately after Hsieh announced the election results a DPP member surnamed Huang (黃) appeared at the press conference venue and shouted out: “The election is invalid! The valid vote number is zero!”
He was quickly removed by party staff.
In addition to electing the party chairperson, DPP members also voted for directors of the party’s local chapters.
Several former legislators who were defeated in January’s legislative elections won local chapter directorships, including Taipei County director Wu Ping-jui (吳秉叡), Miaoli County director Tu Wen-ching (杜文卿), Taichung County’s Kuo Chun-ming (郭俊銘), Chunghua County’s Charles Chiang (江昭儀) and Tainan County’s Cheng Kuo-chung (鄭國忠).
Legislator Chen Chi-yu (陳啟昱) was elected Kaohsiung County chapter director.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
RSS