Coming on the heels of their televised political forum Saturday, both candidates for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairmanship, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
Yesterday Ma took his campaign to Kaohsiung where he told supporters that he appreciates Wang for his experience in the legislature. But he told partisans there to "affirm Wang Jin-pyng but vote for Ma Ying-jeou."
The Taipei mayor also said that the KMT should not be divided after the chairmanship election, regardless of who wins the election.
PHOTO: CHANG CHUNG-YIH, TAIPEI TIMES
Addressing long-standing doubts about his relationship with Wang, given their rivalry in the chairmanship election, Ma said that he and Wang have both promised to work together.
Should he lose, said Ma, he will accept any party duties Wang delegates to him. Similarly, should be win, he and Wang will, together to administer the KMT, Ma said.
Echoing comments he made during his televised speech on Saturday, Ma said that "reform is not a just slogan."
"We must let everyone believe that the KMT [is worthy of] hope. Only this way can we appeal to moderate voters and young voters," Ma said.
The Taipei mayor also took the opportunity to criticize the administration of President Chen Shui-bian (
"The Executive Yuan wishes to revise the Referendum Law (
"While referendums are not some sort of monster, it should be the people themselves who take the initiative push for political participation, not the government," Ma said.
The Cabinet proposed an amendment to the Referendum Law last week to lower the necessary number of people to initiate a referendum. Since the proposal was made, it has faced heavy criticism by the pan-blue camp in the legislature.
Currently, to initiate a referendum, at least 0.5 percent of all qualified voters -- approximately 80,000 people -- must endorse a referendum initiative.
Chen has already publicly said that it is impossible to make a new constitution or to change the nation's name, meaning he should put all efforts into the economy instead of his pushing for amendments, Ma said.
Meanwhile, Wang yesterday mingled with supporters in Changhua County, and sought the support of young party members there.
"Everyone says that Ma is very handsome, but there are also people that say that there are different kinds of good-looking," Wang said yesterday.
"Ma Ying-jeou is one kind of handsome, and Wang Jin-pyng is another kind of handsome." he said jokingly.
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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