Confirming rumors that the "pan-blue" camp would cooperate, PFP Chairman James Soong (
According to Soong, a "united team" would work on three projects.
First of all, both parties would achieve joint candidacy in the year-end Taipei and Kaohsiung mayoral elections and the following presidential race to give the people a better choice, Soong said.
After winning the elections, Soong said, both parties would coordinate to select a professional administration to serve the people.
The advantages enjoyed by both sides include the wealth of financial and economic specialists available to the KMT and the large number of elite officials from the former Taiwan Provincial Government who are now in the PFP, Soong said.
Lastly, the "united team" would present policies that are consistent with the public's expectations and the team will be able to resolve problems faced by the country, he added.
Soong said the idea of forming a "united team" transcends the question of whether the two parties should merge into one.
Soong reasoned that the recent proposal for a KMT-PFP merger has triggered extensive public discussion mainly because people are disappointed with the status quo of the country.
"Under these circumstances, people are expecting a better choice in the next presidential election. And a better choice means the availability of a choice that will win," Soong said.
On the possibility of his running on the same ticket with KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
"I don't think it is appropriate to decide on the candidates now, as both parties still need to go through some necessary [nomination] procedures," Soong said.
Soong suggested that the top priority for both parties at the moment is to cooperate and pursue a goal and attain it.
Soong said the year-end mayoral elections and the 2004 presidential race will be two major goals for the united team.
"It will facilitate the accomplishment of the second goal if the first one goes smoothly," Soong said
Agreeing with Soong, KMT Secretary-General Lin Fong-cheng (
Lin said both parties realized that the failure for the KMT to present one united ticket was the main reason for its defeat in the 2000 presidential race.
While the Feb. 1 elections for the Legislative Yuan speakership and vice speakership proved the strength of a KMT-PFP alliance, they are now moving toward the next stage, namely the year-end mayoral elections, Lin said.
"If the two parties cooperate well in the Taipei and Kaohsiung mayoral races, then cooperation in the presidential race will happen naturally," Lin added.
According to Lin, Lien and Soong have reached a consensus on a KMT-PFP joint candidacy in both the Taipei and Kaohsiung mayoral races.
While Ma Ying-jeou's (
He said the KMT and PFP will coordinate to select their joint candidate for Kaohsiung mayor, after both parties have named their preferred candidates for the competition, probably in June.
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
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater