Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) won the party’s chairperson by-election yesterday with nearly 69 percent of the vote over former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌).
Voting favored Chiang in all 22 counties and cities, KMT statistics showed.
In Taipei, where Hau served as mayor from 2006 to 2014, Chiang garnered nearly 60 percent of the votes, gaining about 2,600 more than Hau.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Votes from party members overseas were expected to favor Hau, but the party’s data showed that most went to Chiang.
The by-election had a low turnout of only 35.85 percent, or 124,019 people out of 345,971 who were eligible to vote.
Chiang received 84,860 votes, or 68.8 percent of the valid ballots, while Hau received 38,483. There were 676 invalid votes.
Hau issued a statement at about 6pm — before vote-counting had been completed — acknowledging defeat and congratulating Chiang on winning the election.
Hau thanked the members who voted and the volunteers who helped with the election process.
Chiang has a significant burden to bear over the next year and we hope he lives up to his promise of change, Hau said.
Hau said he has always believed, and still does, that if the KMT is strong, it can help make Taiwan a better place.
Chiang thanked supporters for voting for him and said their choice ensured that the KMT’s handover from the previous generation to the next would be successful.
Chiang said that he would institute organizational changes in the KMT and place less emphasis on party headquarters and more on local party chapters.
This would enable the party to be more connected to local residents, he said.
He promised to upgrade, improve and digitize party affairs, saying that this would be just the beginning of sweeping changes.
“The KMT from now on will be a party that is more modern and swift to respond to demands,” Chiang said.
Chiang said that he had spoken with Hau on the telephone and hopes to work with him to introduce reforms that would improve the KMT.
The by-election was to fill the vacancy left by Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), who stepped down last month after the party’s losses in the Jan. 11 presidential and legislative elections.
The KMT plans to hold an inauguration ceremony for Chiang tomorrow morning.
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
RSS