Nearly 60 percent of Taipei citizens wouldn't mind having a female mayor, a recent survey showed.
According to the survey, conducted by the Decision Making Research Center, PFP legislator Lee Ching-an (李慶安), Council for Hakka Affairs Chairwoman Yeh Chu-lan (葉菊蘭) and independent legislator Sisy Chen (陳文茜) were the top choices among Taipei citizens to be a woman mayor.
DPP legislator Wang Hsueh-fung (
As Ma, of the KMT, has already expressed an interest in running for re-election, other parties have been searching for candidates strong enough to take him on.
Wang said she believed Yeh could gain enormous support from Taipei's citizens.
Wang and Lee Wen-ying (李文英), convener of a women's advocacy group, said they would start a petition soon to ask DPP party headquarters to nominate Yeh for the Taipei mayoral race.
Rather than persist in having a male candidate, Wang said, the DPP should take a different perspective and nominate a female candidate for the position.
Meanwhile, DPP legislator Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) yesterday said that the party would name its candidate for the mayoral election by June. Luo said the DPP was confident it would field a qualified candidate to run against Ma.
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) already has a candidate in mind, Luo said, but the time has not yet come to make public the candidate's name.
Luo declined to comment on possible DPP candidates. Speculation has centered on Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan (
Though he is not expected to run in this year's election, Luo, a close aid of President Chen and a former director of the DPP's Department of Culture and Information, has been tipped by many as a possible DPP Taipei mayoral candidate in the future.
Beijing could eventually see a full amphibious invasion of Taiwan as the only "prudent" way to bring about unification, the US Department of Defense said in a newly released annual report to Congress. The Pentagon's "Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2025," was in many ways similar to last year’s report but reorganized the analysis of the options China has to take over Taiwan. Generally, according to the report, Chinese leaders view the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) capabilities for a Taiwan campaign as improving, but they remain uncertain about its readiness to successfully seize
Taiwan is getting a day off on Christmas for the first time in 25 years. The change comes after opposition parties passed a law earlier this year to add or restore five public holidays, including Constitution Day, which falls on today, Dec. 25. The day marks the 1947 adoption of the constitution of the Republic of China, as the government in Taipei is formally known. Back then the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) governed China from Nanjing. When the KMT, now an opposition party in Taiwan, passed the legislation on holidays, it said that they would help “commemorate the history of national development.” That
HORROR STORIES: One victim recounted not realizing they had been stabbed and seeing people bleeding, while another recalled breaking down in tears after fleeing A man on Friday died after he tried to fight the knife-wielding suspect who went on a stabbing spree near two of Taipei’s busiest metro stations, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said. The 57-year-old man, identified by his family name, Yu (余), encountered the suspect at Exit M7 of Taipei Main Station and immediately tried to stop him, but was fatally wounded and later died, Chiang said, calling the incident “heartbreaking.” Yu’s family would receive at least NT$5 million (US$158,584) in compensation through the Taipei Rapid Transit Corp’s (TRTC) insurance coverage, he said after convening an emergency security response meeting yesterday morning. National
Taiwan has overtaken South Korea this year in per capita income for the first time in 23 years, IMF data showed. Per capita income is a nation’s GDP divided by the total population, used to compare average wealth levels across countries. Taiwan also beat Japan this year on per capita income, after surpassing it for the first time last year, US magazine Newsweek reported yesterday. Across Asia, Taiwan ranked fourth for per capita income at US$37,827 this year due to sustained economic growth, the report said. In the top three spots were Singapore, Macau and Hong Kong, it said. South