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 (
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
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The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult
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