Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) yesterday declined to confirm if he intends to seek re-election as party chairman and said those vying for the chairmanship would be announced in June.
“Everything will become clear on June 15 when hopefuls are required collect a registration form. I will contest the election if I claim a form on that day and I will not if I don’t claim a form,” Wu said yesterday at KMT headquarters.
When asked about speculation that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) could take over as party chairman, Wu reiterated that the candidates would be known on June 15.
PHOTO: WANG YI-HSIUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
The election for KMT chairman is scheduled to take place in July.
The Presidential Office has rebutted media speculation that Ma will double as President and KMT chairman in order to take control of party affairs.
KMT Secretary-General Wu Den-yi (吳敦義) yesterday also said Ma and Wu Poh-hsiung would decide by June whether they will run in the election for party chairman.
A poll conducted by Chinese-language newspaper the China Times showed that 39 percent of respondents said the KMT were not implementing Ma’s policies. However, 47 percent said they were opposed to Ma becoming KMT chairman. Only 27 percent said they supported Ma taking up the position.
When asked about who they would support in the KMT chairman election, 29 percent said Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強).
Asked whether they were satisfied with Ma’s performance, 44 percent of the respondents said yes, while 40 percent said they were satisfied with Wu Poh-hsiung’s performance.
Wu Poh-hsiung said Hu’s high support rate showed that the party was not lacking in talent.
At a separate setting yesterday, KMT Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) said he was against Ma acting as president and party chairman, saying it would be a setback to democracy.
He said that the China Times survey showed that “the ass kissers close to President Ma can stop [pushing the idea] now that Ma knows how loyal you are.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FLORA WANG
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