As the campaign for the Hualien County commissioner by-election wound up yesterday, it was still unclear which of the three main candidates would emerge victorious.
"I have never witnessed any election like this where up until the day before the election, there are still so many undecided voters, up to 30 or 40 percent," DPP candidate You Ying-lung (
Each of the three key contenders has strong backing either from a party or grassroots support.
Big-name politicians from the DPP, KMT and PFP have swarmed to Hualien over the past few weeks to stump for their candidates.
President Chen Shui-bian (
KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
Although Hsieh led opinion polls in the weeks leading up to the election, You and and independent candidate Wu Kuo-tung (
You has been trying to expand the DPP's support base of around 30 percent of the electorate by targeting Aboriginal and Hakka communities -- traditionally staunch supporters of the pan-blue camp.
The DPP candidate may benefit from central government moves to deliver better services to the county's Aboriginal communities and the around-the-clock police checks to prevent vote-buying in Aboriginal areas.
Hsieh's attempts to generate a "dump Wu to save Hsieh" campaign are also falling flat, as die-hard supporters of Wu have made themselves more visible.
On Thursday, for example, Wu's motorcade rally of about 6,000 supporters was much bigger than one the same day held for Hsieh that was joined by Lien and Soong.
Wu, a Hakka from Hualien, has played on his ethnicity and seems to be denting the DPP's appeal in Hakka townships.
Moreover, Wu has secured the support of several PFP stalwarts in Hualien, despite Soong's backing for Hsieh.
Local polling analysts predict a tight contest, with the winning margin likely to be no more than 5,000 votes.
They said the winner would need the votes of at least 55,000 of the 256,685 eligible voters.
In the last Hualien County commissioner election, the KMT's Chang Fu-hsing (張福興) garnered 59,591 votes, while the DPP's You received 47,596 votes and the PFP's Lai Cheng-hsiung (賴政雄) got 41,752 votes.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods