Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said he will meet with Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) by next week in an effort to seek Wang's cooperation as soon as possible.
"I was nominated by the party as the presidential candidate. The Ma-Wang meeting should not be delayed any longer," Ma said yesterday in an interview with TVBS.
Pledging to meet with Wang by next week, Ma said he would like to carry out his promise to invite Wang to be his running mate, and sort out the issue as soon as possible.
"I think the [Ma-Wang ticket] issue is not what people care about the most. I hope to visit Speaker Wang as soon as possible," he said.
After expressing confidence about his chances of winning the presidential election next year, Ma then criticized the four Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential hopefuls.
Voters will support the candidate who demonstrates honesty and political ability, he said.
"Premier Su Tseng-chang (
Ma also used the occasion to reiterate the KMT's stance that Taiwan maintain its status quo and that the party would prioritize the nation's economy.
"The KMT does not support Taiwan independence, and we will not choose the option of Taiwan independence," he said.
If elected president, Ma said he would take advantage of his "Taipei experience" as former Taipei mayor and build a better Taiwan.
"I believe I will not lose the election to any other candidate," he added.
Ma is expected to decide on his running mate before his candidacy is formally announced during the KMT's national convention on June 24.
In response to Ma's remarks, Wang said he was willing to meet with Ma next week.
But he said he had no idea what Ma wanted to talk to him about in the meeting, and he himself hadn't thought of issues to exchange ideas with Ma on.
"He [Ma] has been telling me that the KMT has to decide on the party's presidential ticket as soon as possible as the DPP [Democratic Progressive Party] will soon determine its candidates, but I told him that there is no hurry on this," Wang told the press yesterday.
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiu-chuan
COSTLY TECH FAILURE: More than 25,000 files for nearly 8,000 students from 81 schools were lost when system administrators updated a server, the Ministry of Education said The academic records of 7,854 high-school students have been lost due to a hard-drive failure, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The records were being stored at National Chi Nan University, which was commissioned by the ministry’s K-12 Education Administration to host a computer server of student portfolios that universities could access to evaluate their applications. Under a program introduced in 2019 for high-school students starting that year, students are to create portfolios to be used for university applications, which include their grades, extracurricular activities and other information related to their character and achievements. System administrators discovered that files were missing when rebooting
CONFUSING RESULTS: A New Taipei City worker tested positive for COVID-19 in a rapid test and a PCR test, but negative in a traditional nucleic acid test, the CECC said Travelers from Bangladesh, Brazil and Peru are no longer required to quarantine at a government center, and from Saturday can choose to quarantine at hotels, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. The three nations are no longer considered “key high-risk countries,” as their COVID-19 case numbers have continued to fall, the CECC said, adding that no travelers from these countries have been confirmed to be infected with COVID-19 in the past two months. The revised classification would allow travelers from the three countries to choose where they stay during their mandatory 14-day quarantine, although they would be required to pay
Paraguay, Belize, and Saint Kitts and Nevis, three of the 15 UN members that have official diplomatic ties with Taiwan, voiced support at the UN General Assembly on Friday for Taiwan’s inclusion in the UN. In a video played at the 76th session of the General Assembly in New York, Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benitez said that universality is a basic principle of the UN, and based on that principle, “we support the inclusion of Taiwan within the United Nations system.” Taiwan lost its UN seat in 1971, when most countries shifted recognition to Beijing. Belizian Prime Minister John Briceno on Friday attended
ONE NEW DOMESTIC CASE: The CECC confirmed the COVID-19 case based on an antibody test, despite other tests indicating that the woman was likely not infectious The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) would ease COVID-19 restrictions depending on the vaccination rate and other factors, but lowering the level 2 COVID-19 alert would require more careful consideration, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said yesterday. In its decision of when to lower the alert, the center would take into account Taiwan’s first-dose COVID-19 vaccination rate, with the aim to reach 60 percent, people’s compliance with disease prevention measures and the general COVID-19 situation in the nation, Chen told the CECC’s daily news conference. The center would take “a more rigorous approach” when making
RSS