Cabinet Secretary-General Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) was yesterday elected Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman in a two-way race, DPP Acting Chairman Lin Yu-chang (林右昌) said.
Lin made the announcement at 6:40pm at a news conference at the DPP headquarters in Taipei, saying that Cho would be sworn in on Wednesday.
The by-election was held to fill the vacancy left by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) after she resigned as party chairperson on Nov. 24 to take responsibility for the DPP’s losses in the local elections.
Photo: CNA
The other candidate was Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation chairman Michael You (游盈隆).
Voting took place from 9am to 5pm, with about 200,000 party members eligible to cast ballots at 117 polling stations nationwide.
A total of 34,230 votes were cast, representing a turnout of 16.9 percent, the party said.
Cho garnered 24,699 votes, or 72.6 percent of the total votes cast, while You received 9,323 votes, or 27.4 percent, it added.
Cho, who served in several government posts and was a lawmaker from 1999 to 2004, was backed by a group of mayors, county commissioners and legislators comprised mostly of middle-aged party members.
You, who served as the deputy head of the Mainland Affairs Council and secretary-general of the Straits Exchange Foundation during former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) time in office from 2000 to 2008, was mainly backed by a group opposed to Tsai.
Cho is considered to be a protege of Tsai and his position on various issues are expected to be closely aligned with the president’s.
His term is to end on May 19 next year.
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
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
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
ECONOMIC COERCION: Such actions are often inconsistently applied, sometimes resumed, and sometimes just halted, the Presidential Office spokeswoman said The government backs healthy and orderly cross-strait exchanges, but such arrangements should not be made with political conditions attached and never be used as leverage for political maneuvering or partisan agendas, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks after China earlier in the day announced 10 new “incentive measures” for Taiwan, following a landmark meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in Beijing on Friday. The measures, unveiled by China’s Xinhua news agency, include plans to resume individual travel by residents of Shanghai and China’s Fujian
RSS