Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) condemned the Cabinet yesterday for threatening to sack local election commissioners if they do not enforce the one-step election system in next year's polls.
Ma said local governments should focus their efforts on maintaining order at polling stations.
"Local governments will find the best way to handle election affairs and maintain order. It's their duty, and they will do so in accordance with the law," Ma said ahead of the release of his latest campaign ads at KMT headquarters.
Ma accused the Cabinet and Government Information Office Minister Shieh Jhy-wey (
"The CEC hasn't taken over local election commissions yet, the Government Information Office has already taken over the CEC," Ma said.
When asked if the KMT would make concessions on the voting system debate, Ma said local governments should follow regulations, and the that two-step voting procedure was used before without any problems.
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (
"The central government makes different moves every day, and it has taken nine steps so far aimed at creating confrontation with local governments," Hau said.
"The Taipei City Government will continue to handle the elections according to the law and we will exercise the law firmly," he said.
Hau met yesterday with former KMT chairman Lien Chan (
Hau said Taipei election commission chief Samuel Wu (
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
RSS