Putting up a united front, the chairmen of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) expressed their confidence that their party candidates will win the elections for legislative speaker and deputy legislative speaker today.
Calling on the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) not to interfere in the voting process, PFP Chairman James Soong (
"We [the KMT and PFP] must unite to fulfill the hopes of our voters; I call on the KMT's and PFP's legislators to unite to allow legislators Wang Jin-pyng (
Lien spoke at a joint media appearance with Soong after the two met yesterday afternoon, ostensibly to discuss today's speaker and deputy speaker elections.
KMT Vice Chairman and current speaker Wang is running for reelection in the sixth legislature, while PFP legislator Chung is running for deputy speaker.
Speaking before their party caucuses' joint campaign rally yesterday night, the chairmen expressed confidence in the success of their candidates and also reacted to allegations of DPP vote-buying.
The station TVBS recently reported rumors that the DPP is seeking to improve the chances of its candidate, DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (
DPP Secretary-General Chang Chun-hsiung (
Chang said it is the DPP's hope to reform the Legislative Yuan and engage in clean elections.
Lien, citing the reports, said he hopes that tomorrow's vote will be clean.
"I am concerned about the practices that I have heard from the media that will be harmful to a clean election tomorrow," Lien said. "As the governing party, the DPP has the responsibility to fulfill the people's desire for a clean election and not use money to threaten or tempt legislators. It [the alleged bribery] insults all legislators."
Appearing with Lien, Soong also called on the DPP to allow a smooth election to take place tomorrow, and that the DPP should not let conflicts over the elections affect negotiations later on.
Soong said that there are many issues, from cross-strait relations, ethnic harmony, and inter-party cooperation, that the ruling and opposition camps can cooperate on after the elections.
"There are many issues that the opposition and governing parties should begin to take steps on, in order to work for the people, and avoid political spats," Soong said. "We should not allow conflict over the speaker and deputy speaker posts to make everyone unhappy; this is a bad beginning."
"I hope the DPP can take our advice as the third largest, or third smallest, party in the legislature," Soong said. "If in the past few days President Chen Shui-bian (
While the DPP has nominated Ker to run for speaker, it has yet to decide on its candidate for vice speaker.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,