Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Ma Ying-jeou's (
Shortly before last December's Taipei mayoral election, Ma, who was KMT chairman at the time, and PFP Chairman James Soong (
"The consensus of the meeting was that the two parties would nominate candidates together through a common nomination mechanism, but no deal was made for the KMT to give precedence to the PFP," Wu said yesterday.
Director of Ma's presidential campaign office Chan Chun-po (
"I was the secretary-general of the KMT, and I would know about the agreements," he said.
Speculation was strengthened on Tuesday that the KMT-PFP cooperation was on the rocks after the PFP allowed an amendment to the President and Vice President Election and Recall Laws (總統副總統選舉罷免法) to clear the legislature's Procedure Committee. Four PFP members did not attend the vote, which gave the green camp the majority.
The amendment, which stipulates that anyone found guilty of corruption in a first trial should be barred from filing a presidential or vice presidential bid, seems to target Ma, who has been indicted on charges of embezzling state funds.
KMT Spokesman Su Jun-ping (
PFP lawmakers yesterday afternoon held a caucus meeting to determine the party's stance on the amendment, concluding that the KMT must live up to what it said Ma had promised Soong.
"The agreement said that the KMT-PFP alliance will nominate at least ten PFP candidates in the year-end legislative election and the PFP will have three seats in the legislator-at-large lineup," said Feng Ting-kuo (
"Among a total of 73 electoral districts, it's not outrageous that PFP should have 10 of them," he said.
Except for six lawmakers who are abroad, the remaining 15 PFP legislators will show up at today's legislative session if the KMT recognizes the agreement.
"But if the KMT refuses to admit the agreement, I am afraid that many of our colleagues might be tied up with affairs in their constituencies," Feng said.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
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
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