The People First Party (PFP) yesterday criticized the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) decision to adopt a "pan-blue voter exclusion" measure in public opinion polls to select its legislative candidates for the regional seats in December.
Adopting the measure, which the DPP expected would exclude about 50 percent of opposition pan-blue alliance supporters from participating in the DPP's public opinion polls, would only "lead to greater restrictions on the party's future development," PFP spokesman Lee Hung-chun (
The DPP's Central Standing Committee approved the measure on Wednesday during its weekly meeting, with the goal of ensuring that its legislative candidates would be loyal by preventing pan-blue voters from influencing the selection process.
In accordance with its primary mechanism, the DPP will select candidates via a composite election, with the results of public opinion polls counting for 70 percent of the final tally and direct voting by party members counting for 30 percent.
"The fact that the DPP chooses to listen to only half of Taiwan's 23 million people indicates that the ruling party lacks a broad vision and an open mind to embrace the general public," said Lee, adding that the ruling party hoped to nominate candidates loyal to it alone.
"It is really an unbecoming practice," he said.
Taiwan Solidarity Union legislative caucus whip Tseng Tsahn-deng (
Meanwhile, Lee, commenting on the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-PFP cooperation ahead of the December legislative election, said that both parties had reached an initial agreement that only a single, best qualified candidate from either party -- as determined by negotiations -- would run in each constituency.
Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀), a PFP lawmaker and director of the party's policy center, said later yesterday that his party placed a high degree of importance on a promise made by former KMT acting Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) that the KMT will live up to its pledge by further cooperating with the PFP if he is elected party chairman in tomorrow's by-election.
If Wu really means what he said, it would be very helpful in forging further KMT-PFP collaboration in the coming legislative election, Chang said.
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