The names of seven pan-blue legislative candidates from the New Party running under the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) banner in December's elections were announced yesterday.
While the seven will be running as KMT candidates, the New Party said that it would also be nominating an eighth person to run for a seat under its own banner.
The majority of New Party candidates would run for the KMT to increase the latter party's chances of winning more legislator-at-large seats, New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming (
Each party is awarded legislator-at-large seats based on the proportion of the national vote for that party.
By adding candidates to the KMT roster, the New Party will pass on its share of the proportional vote to the KMT.
Not dependent on the KMT
But the New Party would not rely on KMT campaign funds or other support, Yok said.
He said that the New Party is a separate entity from the KMT and that it was seeking to maintain a presence in the legislature by having one member run under the New Party banner.
That candidate will be from a small voting district and be sure to win, Yok said, leading observers to assume the candidate will be New Party Legislator Wu Cheng-tien (
Wu, who represents Kinmen County, is the New Party's sole legislator.
Article 33 of the Legislative Yuan Organic Law (
Yok also said that a merger of the three pan-blue parties was inevitable.
KMT pleased
The response from the KMT was positive, with KMT Secretary-General Lin Fong-cheng (
List of nominees
The eight New Party members who will be running for the legislature are Taipei City Councilor Alex Fei (
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
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
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