Former Taipei EasyCard Corp (悠遊卡公司) chairman Sean Lien (連勝文) emerged as the winner yesterday in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) primary for the Taipei mayoral election later this year after defeating his main competitor, KMT Legislator Ting Shou-chung (丁守中), by a landslide.
The eldest son of former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) secured more than twice as many ballots as Ting to seal his selection as the ruling party’s candidate for the Taipei mayoral contest.
The winner was decided by a total score comprised of each candidate’s showing in a telephone poll conducted on April 12 and 13 that accounted for 70 percent of the score, and the vote among party members, which made up the remaining 30 percent.
Photo: CNA
Sean Lien edged Ting in the telephone poll, gaining the support of 39.717 percent of respondents to the lawmaker’s 36.992 percent, while receiving 10,647 of the 15,758 ballots cast in the internal vote, while Ting had 4,765, according to the KMT’s Taipei branch.
A total of 37,860 KMT members were eligible to participate in yesterday’s primary poll, but voter turnout still fell short of 50 percent at 41.622 percent.
The final score put Sean Lien, who sits on the KMT’s Central Committee, first with 48.19 percent, followed by Ting’s 35.018 percent.
KMT Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元) and Taipei City Councilor Chung Hsiao-ping (鍾小平) were also in the race, but Tsai on Thursday bowed out at the last minute and urged his fellow party members to vote for Sean Lien instead.
In announcing his withdrawal, Tsai also disclosed the results of the telephone poll on Thursday, saying that the numbers showed he was too far behind to win, having come third with 17.5 percent, leading only Chung, who had 5.8 percent.
Ting later that day said that Tsai’s poll data were false and misleading, saying that while the candidates were allowed to dispatch observers to “audit and undertake random checks” at polling stations, the results remained confidential, so there was no way that they could get hold of the exact numbers.
Accusing Tsai of having been cooperating with the eventual winner’s camp all along by playing the role of a “foil” to Sean Lien’s “nice guy,” Ting said Tsai had been playing an unfair game from the beginning of the selection process.
After yesterday’s results were announced, Ting said that despite his defeat, he would put all his efforts toward supporting Sean Lien in the upcoming election.
Although the voting is meant to be confidential, the media accidentally saw President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) ballot yesterday.
The indiscretion occurred when the president, who is also the party’s chairman, was photographed holding a ballot that, despite being folded, showed a red circle stamped on the No. 3 candidate, Ting.
SILENCING CRITICS: In addition to blocking Taiwan, China aimed to prevent rights activists from speaking out against authoritarian states, a Cabinet department said The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday condemned transnational repression by Beijing after RightsCon, a major digital human rights conference scheduled to be held in Zambia this week, was abruptly canceled due to Chinese pressure over Taiwanese participation. This year’s RightsCon, the world’s largest conference discussing issues “at the intersection of human rights and technology,” was scheduled to take place from tomorrow to Friday in Lusaka, and expected to draw 2,600 in-person attendees from 150 countries, along with 1,100 online participants. However, organizers were forced to cancel the event due to behind-the-scenes pressure from China, the ministry said, expressing its “strongest condemnation”
Taiwan’s economy grew far faster than expected in the first quarter, as booming demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications drove a surge in exports, spilling over into investment and consumption, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. GDP growth was 13.69 percent year-on-year during the January-to-March period, beating the DGBAS’ February forecast by 2.23 percentage points and marking the most robust growth in nearly four decades, DGBAS senior official Chiang Hsin-yi (江心怡) told a news conference in Taipei. The result was powered by exports, which remain the backbone of Taiwan’s economy, Chiang said. Outbound shipments jumped 51.12 percent year-on-year to
DELAYED BUT DETERMINED: The president’s visit highlights Taiwan’s right to international engagement amid regional pressure from China President Willaim Lai (賴清德) yesterday arrived in Eswatini, more than a week after his planned visit to Taiwan’s sole African ally was suspended because of revoked overflight permits. “The visit, originally scheduled for April 22, was postponed due to unforeseen external factors,” Lai wrote on social media. “After several days of careful arrangements by our diplomatic and national security teams, we successfully arrived today.” Lai said he looked forward to further deepening Taiwan-Eswatini relations through closer cooperation in the economy, agriculture, culture and education, as well as advancing the nation’s international partnerships. The president was initially scheduled to arrive in time to celebrate
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) yesterday said the US faced a choice between an “impossible” military operation or a “bad deal” with Tehran, after US President Donald Trump disparaged Iran’s latest peace proposal. Negotiations between the two countries have been deadlocked since a ceasefire came into effect on April 8, with only one round of direct peace talks held so far. Iran’s Tasnim and Fars news agencies reported that Tehran had submitted a 14-point proposal to mediator Pakistan, but Trump was quick to cast doubt on it. “I will soon be reviewing the plan that Iran has just sent to us, but
RSS