Among the candidates celebrating their local election victories yesterday was a former political heavyweight who staged a successful comeback after his defeat in December's legislative and city mayor elections.
Su Nan-cheng (
Su, 66, was once Kaohsiung City mayor and an adviser to former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝). He also served two terms as Tainan City mayor from 1977 to 1985 and was the speaker of the National Assembly in 1999.
With such a lengthy resume, however, Su's political career was once regarded by some to have reached an end.
Su stepped down as speaker of the National Assembly and was expelled from his party, the KMT, in 1999 after being accused of violating party orders.
The accusations stemmed from Su's decision to allow assembly deputies to vote a second time during the second reading of the controversial amendment on term extensions.
Su's victory last night was seen as a confidence boost for the former speaker as he bounced back onto the stage where he had once shined.
However, Wu Ko-ching (
The speaker of Hsinchu County council, Huang Huan-chi (
Huang is well known for his alleged involvement in a vote-buying scandal during the campaign for the Dec. 1 elections.
Huang was accused of using the county council's budget for personal use to purchase tea and moon cakes for voters.
He was later released on bail for health reasons.
Shih Chih-ming (施治明), a former Tainan City mayor, was also unsuccessful in his campaign to win a seat on the city council.
Like Huang, Shih was unsuccessful in his campaign for the Dec. 1 election.
Earlier this week, Shih, an independent, was indicted by Tainan City's Prosecutors' Office for alleged corruption during his term as the city's mayor from 1993 to 1997.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
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