The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) was the biggest winner in yesterday's by-election for Kaohsiung City councilors. However, a mockery was made of the city's electoral politics as Kaohsiung's vote-buying culture proved that it is alive and well with the election of Chu Ting-shan (朱挺珊), who ran in the by-election on behalf of her father, Chu An-hsiung (朱安雄), a former city council speaker who has been convicted of vote-buying.
Three of the TSU's four candidates were elected in yesterday's by-election, which, added to the election of six Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidates, gives the pan-green camp the majority of seats in the Kaohsiung City Council.
Political analysts yesterday said that the TSU's excellent performance was due to its strategy of headhunting former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) councilors with solid grassroots support, as well as the consolidation of the pro-independence vote.
Chuang Chi-ming (
Chiu Kuo-chen (
Cheng Cheng-iok (鄭正煜), executive director of Taiwan Southern Society (南社), said yesterday that the pan-green camp's becoming the majority has presented a critical choice for "swing" politicians who must choose between the pan-green and the pan-blue camp.
"This by-election reveals that Taiwanese identity has become mainstream opinion and started to take root since the presidential election. This tendency will grow and strengthen in the year-end legislative elections and gradually drive out the colonial remnants of the pro-unification China-centric ideology," Cheng said.
However, the by-election yesterday was marred by a return of corrupt political forces, with the election of three candidates with family ties to former councilors convicted of taking NT$5 million bribes from Chu An-hsiung in the election for council speaker.
Three of the nine candidates from the bribe-taking families were elected. They are, in addition to Chu Ting-shan, Tsai Wu-nan (
Chu Ting-shan and Tsai Wu-nan ran independent campaigns, while Chen represented the KMT. All three come from Kaohsiung's 5th electoral district, an older area and a stronghold of Kaohsiung's traditional industries.
Chiu said the success of the three candidates from the bribe-taking families resulted from the special features of the area, where support for candidates comes from traditional grassroots connection networks.
The three candidates from the bribe-taking families nominated by the DPP all failed in yesterday's by-election, reflecting Kaohsiung residents' high expectations for the DPP, which has long claimed to be a beacon of democracy and a pioneer in the country's democratic development.
DPP Deputy Secretary-general Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) yesterday expressed appreciation to Kaohsiung voters, as six of the DPP's 10 candidates were elected -- but said the DPP took note of the voters' not having elected the three DPP candidates with ties to bribe-takers.
The lone Aboriginal seat at stake was won by the DPP's Ateng Ingay (
Cheng said Ateng Ingay's win is historic in Kaohsiung's political arena and that Aboriginal political culture, which is traditionally known for its close ties to the pan-blue camp, has made a breakthrough.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS