The abrupt resignation of Council of Labor Affairs Chairman Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) earlier this month would not have a "domino effect" on the rest of the Cabinet in the run-up to the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) primary this week, political observers said.
Lee called an impromptu press conference last Tuesday where he said he was quitting because of the Cabinet's decision to put on hold the council's plan to announce a raise in the minimum wage.
Lee also said he had found it difficult to deal with Premier Su Tseng-chang's (
Su has not accepted Lee's resignation and has said he would try to dissuade him from leaving the Cabinet. A leave of absence, however, could be possible.
Chen Chao-jian (
"The time is now over," Chen said, adding that whoever wanted to leave the Cabinet to express support for other DPP presidential hopefuls would do so before long.
DPP members will go to the polls today to vote in the party's presidential and regional legislative primaries.
The party member vote will account for 30 percent of the hopefuls' total score, while a string of public opinion polls to be conducted between Wednesday and Friday will account for the remainder.
"Su has been trying to portray himself as someone who is open to all kinds of ideas, hence his inviting people who may not like him to join his team," he added.
Chen said that Lee had been frustrated with Su since the 2005 Taipei County commissioner's election because Su, who was DPP chairman at the time, did not support Lee, who wanted to run in the election as the party's candidate.
Lee, who was Hsieh's campaign manager in last December's Taipei mayoral election, launched a three-day 100km walk the day after his resignation for what he called a "walk for justice and conscience," adding the walk was the first step of his support for Hsieh.
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
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