KMT Secretary-General Lin Fong-cheng (林豐正) yesterday met with his PFP counterpart Tsai Chung-hsiung (蔡鐘雄) to discuss who will represent the two parties in the Hualien County commissioner election in August.
Former Cabinet secretary-general Hsieh Shen-shan (謝深山) of the KMT has emerged as the favorite to get the nomination, although other pan-blue candidates have refused to rule out running independent campaigns if they are not chosen.
Hsieh, a senior KMT official and labor-union leader, led opinion polls conducted by the KMT.
"After discussing this matter extensively during our meeting, we'll reach a conclusion on who the KMT-PFP alliance wishes to jointly nominate," Lin said.
"We'll then report our conclusion to both KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and PFP Chairman James Soong (
He said Lien and Soong would jointly announce their decision today.
The Hualien County commissioner by-election will be held on Aug. 2 to fill the post left vacant by KMT incumbent, Chang fu-hsiung (張福興), who died of lung cancer last month.
Although Hsieh is the favorite to get the nomination, some other party members have also expressed their strong intention to win the candidacy. They include former Hualien County commissioner Wu Kuo-tung (吳國棟) and Liu Chao-eh (劉詔娥), widow of the late commissioner Chang. PFP Legislator Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁) has also expressed a desire to run.
Although Lin was confident his party could persuade other candidates to step down after the nomination is announced, Wu said he was keeping his options open.
"Even though I would not be at all happy if the party skips over me to nominate others, I can't do anything about it," Wu said.
He said last night that KMT headquarters had not informed him of any conclusions they may have reached.
When asked whether he would resign his KMT membership to run his own campaign if the party did not nominate him, Wu said, "I have yet to consider such an option, though chances are that such scenario might evolve."
Hualien County is considered a pan-blue stronghold, but if Wu insists on running he could divide the pan-blue vote.
Liu, who claimed that Lien had once encouraged her to succeed her husband, has said that she would nonetheless respect the party headquarters' decision if she was not nominated. She was unavailable for comment last night.
After the failure of the parties' joint candidate in the Kaohsiung mayoral race in December last year, August's by-election is seen as a crucial test of their ability to cooperate in elections ahead of the presidential vote in March next year.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
RSS