Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (
Although the KMT will enjoy a two-thirds majority in the new legislature, Ma said the party would allow the Cabinet to get on with its work, instead of asking the president to appoint a new premier and then forming a new Cabinet before the inauguration of a new president in May.
Ma also pledged not to pursue any constitutional amendments in the next two years, saying that implementing the Constitution that was amended only three years ago was more important than revising it at this stage.
"What the public wants most at this stage is for us to revive the economy and enrich their lives," Ma said during a forum held yesterday by the Association for Strategic Development of Chinese Economic Region.
It is common practice for the premier to lead the Cabinet in resigning en masse as a show of respect for a newly elected legislature, which will reconvene on Feb. 1.
The tradition dates back to the period when the legislature had the power to approve Cabinet appointments. This was changed after the constitutional amendments in 1997.
After the Cabinet's resignation at the end of this month, the president will either appoint a new premier and Cabinet or keep the current Cabinet until May 20, when the new president is sworn in.
Ma also vowed to put an end to ethnic confrontation, ease regulations on investment, push for a prosperous cross-strait relationship, demand that all government officials remain neutral, fight corruption and respect opposition parties if elected.
"The KMT won the majority in the legislature through a democratic process, rather than through violence. Our victory should not be considered a crime. Instead, it showed that people want change," he said.
Discussing the issue of changing constituency districts, Ma proposed redrawing them to create three cities and 15 counties in the next eight years if elected.
Taipei City, Taipei County and Keelung City could be integrated into one metropolitan area; Tai-chung City, Taichung County, Changhua County and Nantou County can be merged; while Kaohsiung City and Kaohsiung County could be merged into another metropolitan area, Ma said.
The forming of the three metropolises would help stimulate economic development in other cities and counties, Ma said.
Ma also proposed merging the 319 towns around the country, but opposed appointing, rather than electing, township magistrates.
"I oppose such a move on the basis of grassroots democracy. It would be strange to have the government appoint township magistrates when grassroots power is growing in other countries like the US and Japan," Ma said.
The draft of the "Law on Local Government Systems" (
If the law is passed, the central government will be in charge of appointing township magistrates.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching