Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman Yu Shyi-kun yesterday strongly recommended using approval ratings to select the party's Kaohsiung mayoral candidate, sparking anger from some party members, who accused him of failing to remain impartial.
Although former Council of Labor Affairs chairwoman Chen Chu (
Under the DPP's current primary mechanism, party members will vote on Sunday for their favored candidate. This will count for 30 percent in the selection process. A telephone survey of Kaohsiung residents -- scheduled for next month -- will count for the remaining 70 percent.
PHOTO: CHANG CHUNG-YI, TAIPEI TIMES
Yu said at a press conference that he had consulted some "important people" in the party about the new method and had gained their support.
"We would like to emphasize that only unity can lead to a victory and only negotiation could result in unity," Yu said. "We think that using a survey to settle on a candidate is the best way to find out the best hope for the DPP."
Yu added that the Taipei and Kaohsiung mayoral elections were crucial to the DPP's development and he was worried about the negative effect if the DPP failed to win the elections.
Therefore, Yu said, the DPP would try its best to coordinate with the three potential candidates -- DPP Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (
"I believe that if each candidate moves backward a small step, this would help the whole party move forward a big step," Yu said.
But the New Tide faction, the largest of the DPP's factions and the one Chen Chu belongs to, responded negatively.
Former chief convener of the party's New Tide faction Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康) yesterday afternoon held a news conference to question the identities of the "important people" Yu had mentioned. Tuan asked Yu to release their names, to prevent the Kaohsiung nomination from becoming the result of "secret chamber politics."
"Yu should be the judge in this game, but instead he has jumped into the game and tried to intervene in the outcome, which we think is not impartial at all," Tuan said.
Tuan urged the DPP to stick to its primary mechanism.
"If the DPP abandons its primary regulations, then I think it has lost a precious part of what it has earned," Tuan said.
Some other members of the DPP said that Yu was biased in favor of Yeh.
"I think the whole thing is because some people lack a democratic attitude," DPP Legislator Huang Wei-cher (
When asked about her reactions, Chen yesterday said that one of the reasons former DPP legislator Luo Wen-jia (
"Without a complete primary, Luo later had significant difficulties in winning recognition from local voters on the campaign trail, and the method was seen to have enraged the DPP's grassroots members," Chen Chu said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods