Two smaller political parties said yesterday that they either opposed or held reservations about having presidential and legislative elections on the same day, as suggested by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman Yu Shyi-kun.
The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) and People First Party (PFP) were responding to Yu's suggestion of combining the legislative elections scheduled for the end of 2007 and the presidential election in March 2008 as a means of strengthening social harmony and saving money.
Yu said that many groups have told him that there are too many elections in Taiwan, which have caused rifts in the fabric of society. Combining presidential and legislative elections -- the two most prominent elections in the country -- would be a socially harmonious and cost-efficient move.
Liao Pen-yen (
Liao said that as a minor party, it will be unable to field its presidential candidate, and that two-in-one elections would be favorable to large political parties in building up momentum, while further squeezing the maneuvering space of the smaller parties.
He said if the DPP is set to promote the two-in-one elections, the TSU will advocate cross-party coordination to decide whether it is feasible.
PFP Legislator and party spokesman Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) said that although the two-in-one elections will reduce social disruption, the move is definitely not favorable to the smaller parties, leading to their marginalization.
He said if the DPP formally suggest holding the two elections, then the PFP will convene a meeting to discuss on how to deal with the changes.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
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,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift