Recent news about Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) plans for vote allocation in the year-end legislative elections for candidates within their own party became a point of contention between the party and its ally the People First Party (PFP) yesterday, with PFP chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) reminding the KMT of the PFP's importance.
The leadership of the two parties initially seemed friendly yesterday with KMT heavyweight and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and Soong yesterday appearing together to stump for PFP Legislator Chung Shao-ho's (鍾紹和) re-election run in Kaohsiung County. Despite handshakes between the two, Soong's comments at the rally revealed that he did not consider the KMT to be cooperating with the PFP.
"Speaker Wang's math is very good. He knows that for the pan-blue alliance to win a majority of seats in the legislative elections, the KMT and the PFP have to be added together in order for there to be a majority," Soong said yesterday.
For the pan-blue alliance to capture a majority in the year-end legislative elections, the KMT and its ally the PFP must together win over 113 seats in the 225-seat legislature. KMT Organization and Development Affairs Director-General Liao Feng-te (廖風德) said yesterday that the party expects 54 to 58 of its 74 candidates to win seats in the Dec. 11 elections. The PFP has 41 candidates running in the elections.
"There are some people in the KMT that are not willing to allocate votes with the PFP. These people are still not clear about their position. Does this mean that calls for cooperation were just lies?" Soong asked.
Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) also commented about the KMT's plans yesterday. According to Ma, the most important issue now is cross-party endorsements for pan-blue legislative candidates, and not vote allocation plans.
There is still one month until the elections. The KMT will focus on how to best allocate votes between candidates, Ma said.
The Taipei City mayor was nearly hit with an egg yesterday while stumping for KMT legislative candidate Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池).
While shaking hands with voters in a market with Lin, an unidentified woman tossed an egg at the mayor from behind, but missed.
Ma took the incident in stride, saying it must be a campaign side-effect of the competition between the KMT and the Democratic Progressive Party.
EXPANSIONIST: China deploys an average of 40 to 50 warships and coast guard vessels daily in the South China Sea, despite pledges not to militarize the region, an official said China is attempting to expand its influence across the First Island Chain and increase pressure on Japan by sending coast guard vessels into waters off of Taiwan under the pretext of maritime negotiations with Japan and the Philippines, a national security official said yesterday. China’s recent actions in the waters east of Taiwan and Japan and the Philippines’ exclusive economic zones (EEZ) are attempts to establish dominance in First Island Chain waters, said the official who declined to be named, adding that this is “expansion disguised as law enforcement.” Framing China’s actions solely as a cross-strait issue is a serious misjudgment that
Through analyzing fossil evidence, a research team at National Taiwan University (NTU) discovered the largest endemic bird to have lived in Taiwan, naming it Pavo miejue, or extinct peafowl (滅絕孔雀). The Mikado pheasant, which is printed on the back of the NT$1,000 bank note, was previously believed to be the biggest endemic bird to Taiwan. The research team’s findings suggest that Pavo miejue lived during the Pleistocene epoch tens of thousands of years ago. It is the first endemic extinct bird species discovered and formally named in Taiwan. The study was coauthored by NTU Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修),
Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is to suspend its automated Skytrain service connecting Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 starting on July 1 to facilitate connection works for the upcoming Terminal 3, the airport operator said today. Passengers and staff who need to travel between the two terminals after the suspension can instead use the Taoyuan MRT or the airport's 24-hour shuttle bus service, Taoyuan International Airport Corp said. The Taoyuan MRT Airport Line directly links the two terminals, while the shuttle buses are to operate around the clock, the company added. The Skytrain provides free transportation between the airport’s two terminals for travelers and
Taiwan ranked 42nd in terms of peacefulness among 163 countries, down five places from last year, according to this year’s Global Peace Index. With an overall score of 1.751, Taiwan dropped from 37th last year, the report published by the global Institute for Economics and Peace showed. The overall score measures a country’s level of peacefulness using 23 quantitative and qualitative indicators across three domains — ongoing domestic and international conflict, societal safety and security, and militarization. While Taiwan ranked 42nd worldwide, it was listed in ninth place among the 19 Asian-Pacific countries in the report, after New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia,
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