Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
When asked by reporters why he was not entering the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) chairman by-election next month, Wang said: "I am preparing for the presidential election and have to attend to the legislature."
"How can I possibly think of being KMT chairman? It's out of the question. [The chairman election] is not an option," he said.
But after his remarks were widely interpreted by reporters as tipping his presidential plans, Wang said the media was wrong.
In an interview in the latest issue of the Chinese-language weekly Asia Weekly, Wang said he had more strengths than former KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
Wang told the weekly that he could facilitate ethnic integration and create harmony between the ruling and the opposition camps because he is both a KMT member and a native Taiwanese.
Meanwhile, Ma said yesterday that he was not surprised by Wang's remarks, while denying that the legislative speaker's comments would rule out the idea of the two of them pairing up for next year's election.
"The KMT has its system, and will present the best pair ... Through its negotiation mechanism, the KMT will only have one pair of presidential candidates," Ma said during a campaign tour in Yunlin county, while giving his blessing to Wang.
In other developments, KMT Vice Chairman Chan Chun-po (詹春柏) confirmed yesterday that Ma had asked him to be his presidential campaign manager. But Chan said he would not make a decision until he had a chance to speak to Wang.
"Ma and Wang are both my good friends, and so I will have to talk to Wang before taking the position," Chan said.
He said party members were still hopeful of seeing Wang and Ma cooperating.
Since Ma announced his bid to run for president last month after he was indicted on corruption charges and resigned as KMT chairman, he has been lining up staff for a presidential campaign office. Most of the staff from his chairmanship office and some from his Taipei administration, including former deputy mayor King Pu-tsung (
According to TVBS, Ma will formally open his presidential campaign headquarters on Xinyi Road near Taipei City Hall on March 12.
Kang Bing-cheng (康炳政), former director of Taipei's Tourism Commission, said Ma's team was still searching for the right spot.
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,