Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Legislator Lo Chih-ming (
Both the Kaohsiung and Taipei mayoral elections have attracted a flood of candidates, since serving in one of the two positions is seen as a pre-condition for a presidential nomination in both the pan-blue and pan-green camps.
Lo, who also serves as TSU secretary-general, announced his candidacy at a news conference in Kaohsiung City yesterday. Lo's election bid was endorsed by TSU Chairman Shu Chin-chiang (
"Although Kaohsiung City has changed a lot under the DPP's governance, it has also suffered through the city council speakership bribery scandal and the Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp (KRTC) scandal, and has had three different mayors over the past four years. Kaohsiung citizens need a new leader to usher in a new era for them," Lo said yesterday.
Lo claimed that although a dozen people have already voiced their aspirations for the position of Kaohsiung mayor, some of them had done so to serve their own interests, and not those of Kaohsiung's citizens.
"I'm a legislator elected by Kaohsiung citizens and I know what local people's real needs are," Lo said.
Former Cabinet spokesman Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) took over as acting Kaohsiung mayor after former Kaohsiung mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) stepped down to serve as premier. However, Chen tendered his resignation as a result of the KRTC scandal, in which his father, Chen Che-nan (陳哲男), former deputy secretary-general of the Presidential Office, was allegedly involved. Former adviser to the president Yeh Chu-lan (葉菊蘭) currently serves as acting Kaohsiung mayor.
Since former chairwoman of the Council of Labor Affairs Chen Chu (
Lo said that he hoped the TSU and the DPP could cooperate with each other in Kaohsiung as they are for next month's Chiayi City legislative by-election.
"I will accept whoever is chosen as the pan-green camp's candidate in the primary polls," Lo said.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
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TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
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