Although the next presidential poll is still two years away, the issue of who will carry the hopes and aspirations of opposition parties in the race is already consuming much of their attention.
PFP heavyweight Kao Tsu-min (高資敏) yesterday proposed broad-ening PFP Chairman James Soong's (宋楚瑜) support base in the south to secure his victory in the 2004 presidential poll.
Citing the fact that in the 2000 race, Soong was popular in northern Taiwan while receiving relatively less support in the south, Kao reasoned that such a plan is necessary.
While Soong has not announced his candidacy, it is widely believed that he will make a second presidential bid in 2004.
The PFP chairman would not confirm whether he has made a decision yesterday, saying it is still premature to discuss the issue.
Soong did say, however, that the PFP would seize any opportunity to serve the people and that substantive discussions on the next presidential election have not yet begun.
As for Kao's proposal, Soong said that the PFP not only needs to consolidate support in the south, but should do so in every part of Taiwan.
"We must win the support of mainstream public opinion, rather than engage in a showdown between the `pan-blue' and `pan-green' camps or partaking in a north-south confrontation," Soong said.
Soong has been busy traveling the country of late, visiting supporters in Matsu, Taitung, Ilan, Taichung, Keelung and Taoyuan over the past month. The trips are seen as his initial steps on the 2004 presidential campaign trail.
In light of what appears to be early PFP planning, a number of pro-localization KMT lawmakers yesterday pushed their leader, KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
When asked about the question just two weeks ago, Lien responded only indirectly, saying that the party had "a wealth of talent." This remark was interpreted as a hint that he would not join the race.
The lawmakers, led by Shyu Jong-shyong (
According to Justin Huang (
Wang, however, yesterday reit-erated that he is not interested in and has no intention to run in 2004.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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