While Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has announced her registration for the party’s presidential primary for next year’s election, the situation is not entirely clear in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), where KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) are the most eye-catching duo.
Tsai registered for the DPP’s presidential primary yesterday.
Meanwhile, KMT party spokesperson Charles Chen (陳以信) said the party would make an announcement about potential candidates after discussions to be held after the Lunar New Year.
The KMT, challenged by a major setback in last year’s nine-in-one election, has remained low-profile about next year’s presidential race.
Succeeding President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) as the new party chairman, Chu has worked on party reforms, completing the tasks of restructuring the party’s Evaluation and Discipline Committee, think tank and local party offices.
Despite Chu’s promise when he ran for party chairman that he would not join next year’s race, a party official who declined to be named said the KMT could launch a bottom-up initiative encouraging Chu’s candidacy and therefore he would not rule out Chu’s running for president on the KMT ticket.
Wang, another possible KMT candidate, had dismissed speculation that he plans to announce his candidacy after the Lunar New Year.
However, most recently, he said: “[I am] not thinking about the matter at this point; maybe later,” which has since elicited extensive speculation.
Vice President Wu Den-yih’s (吳敦義) next move also has the public’s attention, but the party official said that since Wu once said that he was the vice chairman appointed by Ma the chairman — meaning that he would play only the role of Ma’s deputy — it is not likely that Wu would join the race.
The party official said that it is rare for both the main opposition party and the ruling party to launch presidential primaries before the Lunar New Year, adding that it is more that the DPP started early than that the KMT is slow.
A sea warning for Typhoon Champi could be issued as early as Wednesday night, possibly followed by a land warning on Thursday night or Friday, as the storm approaches Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. The typhoon is expected to have its greatest impact on Taiwan on Friday and Saturday, bringing heavy rain to central and northern Taiwan and to Yilan and Hualien counties in the east, CWA forecaster Liu Pei-teng (劉沛滕) said. As of 2pm yesterday, Champi was about 2,470km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving westnorthwest at 20kph. It had maximum sustained winds of 191kph and a
The government is monitoring online rumors that a pneumonic plague outbreak has spread from Russia into China, and it might enhance quarantine measures, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During a legislative meeting, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) said that rumors had circulated that the disease had spread across several Chinese provinces. He asked Cho whether the government was prepared to prevent the disease spreading to Taiwan, given the volume of traffic between the two sides, and how concerned the government was about the alleged outbreak. The Ministry of Health and Welfare had implemented border quarantine measures after briefing the Executive
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RIGHT TO DIPLOMACY: Under the UN Charter, every state has the right to conduct foreign policy free from external pressure, Belize said in a statement Belize and Paraguay on Monday condemned Beijing sanctions over their countries’ ties with Taiwan, saying China’s actions create unnecessary tensions. Earlier on Monday, Beijing announced sanctions against Paraguayan Minister of Information and Communication Technologies Gustavo Villate and Belizean Minister of Foreign Affairs Francis Fonseca. The Paraguayan Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it rejected the sanctions, writing on X that they created unnecessary friction. It added that it reaffirmed its support for Taiwan and its commitment to democratic values and principles. Villate told the Spanish-language Paraguayan daily ABC Color the sanctions were “predictable” and linked them to several cooperation projects between Taiwan and Paraguay. The projects
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