Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate Chang Tong-rong (張通榮) won the mayoral by-election in Keelung, the Keelung City Election Commission announced yesterday.
The Keelung mayoral post was left vacant after former mayor Hsu Tsai-li (許財利), a KMT member, died in February at the age of 60 from complications caused by chronic heart disease and diabetes.
According to numbers released by the Keelung City Election Commission, Chang garnered 56,115 votes, or 47.4 percent of the vote.
Chang's opponent, People First Party (PFP) Legislator Liu Wen-hsiung (
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Shy Shyh-ming (
Voter turn out for the by-election only reached 40.55 percent, the Keelung City Election Commission said.
"My victory is a result of the support from all of the city's residents. Thank you all very, very much," Chang told supporters who gathered at the headquarters for his campaign.
Prior to running for the mayoral position, Chang served as a Keelung city councilor for four terms and was twice elected speaker of the council.
Liu conceded defeat, saying: "I didn't work hard enough ? and I hope that Chang will fulfill his campaign promises."
The by-election marked Liu's third unsuccessful bid to become Keelung's mayor.
The by-election was closely watched as it served as a test case for the political alliance between the KMT and the PFP.
The two parties reached a tentative agreement in March to jointly recommend a candidate to run in the Keelung mayoral by-election based on the results of public polls.
However, Liu questioned the results of the public polls and decided to run as an independent after the KMT-PFP alliance recommended Chang as the pan-blue camp's candidate.
Both parties said yesterday that the result of the by-election would not affect future cooperation between the KMT and PFP.
However, a possible crack in the alliance occurred at Liu's campaign headquarters when some of his supporters said they would vote for DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (
Before the voting, Liu said that he would support Ma if he won the Keelung by-election.
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
Labor rights groups yesterday called on the Ministry of Labor to protect migrant workers in Taiwan’s fishing industry, days after CNN reported alleged far-ranging abuses in the sector, including deaths and forced work. The ministry must enforce domestic labor protection laws on Taiwan-owned deep-sea fishing vessels, the Coalition for Human Rights for Migrant Fishers told a news conference outside the ministry in Taipei after presenting a petition to officials. CNN on Sunday reported that Taiwanese seafood giant FCF Co, the owners of the US-based Bumble Bee Foods, committed human rights abuses against migrant fishers, citing Indonesian migrant fishers. The alleged abuses included denying
RSS