The Green Party Taiwan (GPT) announced yesterday that it has settled on five of its 10 candidates for January's legislative elections.
"We have confirmed five candidates out of the 10 we plan to nominate. We are still debating our legislator-at-large seats because these will provide the best positions from which to push environmental issues," GPT Secretary-General Pan Han-shen (
Pan will contest Taipei City's Songshan (松山) and Xinyi (信義) districts, Calvin Wen (溫炳原) Taipei County's Shulin (樹林) and Yingge (鶯歌), Mary Chen (陳曼麗) Taipei County's Yonghe (永和), Hung Hui-hsiang (洪輝祥) Pingtung and Chung Pao-chu (鍾寶珠) Hualien.
Pan said the party may yet decide to nominate Chung and Chen for legislator-at-large seats to maximise their participation in environmental debates.
He added that the party wants to push for government funding for minority representatives and for limits on campaign spending so that "the Legislative Yuan isn't dominated by well-connected and well-funded people."
The GPT hopes to raise at least NT$4 million (US$123,483) to support its election efforts.
Pan said he would push for the cancelation of the NT$200,000 election deposit required of each legislative candidate.
"Ten nominees will cost us NT$2 million -- just for the deposits. We urge like-minded people to support us in this," he said.
Pan said the GPT has three priorities: "To change the structure of Taiwan's economy and promote a low-carbon economy, to vote against the construction of the Suhua Freeway and to build a second forest park instead of a second dome complex on the site of the old Songshan Tobacco Factory."
"We are talking with several social movement groups about joining forces in the election. However, regardless of whether we find a partner or not, we will enter the election to make our voices heard," he said.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires