Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) vice chairman, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
As the ballot recount proceeded in its third day, many legislators and lawyers from the KMT and the People First Party (PFP) disregarded the courts' ban against making public the latest developments in the recount, and overtly reported the preliminary outcomes of the recount, which Ma suggested they stop doing.
"The main purpose of the ballot recount is not to focus on how many controversial ballots we found, but to show our resolution in pursuing justice and truth," Ma said yesterday in the KMT's weekly Central Standing Committee meeting, according to KMT spokeswoman Kuo Su-chun (郭素春).
Ma said that although a large number of errors were detected in the course of the recount, KMT legislators should sympathize with election workers who worked quite hard in the ballot-counting on March 20 and should be careful about their rhetoric when commenting on the controversy over problematic ballots.
"I hope our lawmakers do not create too many expectations for the public, which would mislead them into thinking that the election result will be reversed," Ma said. "I think those errors are more like administrative omissions. We should look at these errors with more empathy and tolerance."
In the Central Standing Committee meeting yesterday, Ma Tzu-heng (馬自恆), an assistant researcher at the Institute of Information Science at Academia Sinica, made a speech arguing that "invalid ballots determined the result of the presidential election" and said bluntly that the ruling party cheated in the election, according to his statistical analysis.
Ma Tzu-heng's speech was praised by KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
Kuo added that Lien will be likely to visit and encourage the lawyers and the party members who helped the recount operations in Kaohsiung over the weekend.
In yesterday's meeting, Ma also urged Lien to give a speech during a rally planned to coincide with the May 20 inauguration of President Chen Shui-bian (
The pan-blue camp now plans to hold the protest at the Sungshan Cigarette Factory as the management office at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall turned down the KMT's application.
Kuo quoted Ma as saying that he believes a May 20 rally would be a good thing, in contrast with others in the party who favor no more rallies, fearing that more disturbances akin to those that took place April 10 could damage rather than benefit the party.
Ma expressed hope that Lien will give a "resounding" speech covering the issues of KMT reform, the activation of the national security mechanism following the March 19 shooting of President Chen, and the simultaneous holding of presidential elections and referendums, according to Kuo.
Ma also expressed hope that other KMT heavyweights will also deliver speeches on the same occasion.
He said that the party should publicly urge its supporters to refrain from going to the square in front of the Presidential Office to avoid unnecessary clashes.
The Democratic Progressive Party has planned a 200,000-strong celebration rally in front of the Presidential Office on that day.
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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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