President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday established a campaign office for his bid for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman, promising to run his campaign legally and economically.
Vice Legislative Speaker Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權), who picked up the registration form for Ma at KMT headquarters yesterday morning, told reporters that Ma had instructed his staff to run the campaign in a legal and thrifty manner and requested neutrality in administrative and party affairs.
If Ma needed to take the presidential airplane to attend any campaign activities, Tseng said he would shoulder the fuel expenses.
All campaign activities would be conducted after office hours, Tseng said, adding that Ma would take a leave of absence if he needed to attend campaign activities during office hours.
Tseng, who doubles as KMT vice chairman, said he had obtained the consent of outgoing KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) to take a leave of absence from his party position during the campaign period, starting yesterday.
In the meantime, Tseng will act as secretary-general and spokesman for Ma’s campaign office. Tseng said the reason behind the decision was to “maintain neutrality in party affairs.”
Asked whether he would do the same for his legislative job, Tseng said: “The legislature represents the people and as we live in a society where partisan politics is responsible politics, the legislature can participate in the activities of political parties.”
On Ma’s campaign office, Tseng said they would use Ma’s old office on Xinyi Road and streamline personnel. All employees would be volunteers, he said.
To be eligible for registration, Ma must garner the signatures of 3 percent of party members, or 15,000 people, before next Wednesday. The election will be held on July 26.
Tseng dismissed reports that KMT lawmakers had been asked to collect 500 signatures each for Ma. He said he hoped each lawmaker could gather at least 500 endorsements, but he did not force them to do so.
Tseng said the NT$2 million (US$60,000) deposit came from Ma’s own pocket, and Ma would raise funds for all future expenses.
Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) said he did not have any information regarding the solicitation of 500 signatures.
Wang also dismissed speculation that Ma meddled in the party’s personnel line-up. There were rumors that Ma would name Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) as a party vice chairman.
Wang did not attend yesterday’s weekly luncheon with Ma at the Presidential Office. Ma meets Wang Jin-pyng, Wu Poh-hsiung, Premier Liu Chao-shuan (劉兆玄) and Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) every Monday.
To celebrate Wu Poh-hsiung’s 70th birthday, Wang Yu-chi said Ma would attend the outgoing KMT chairman’s book launch tomorrow. Wu Poh-hsiung has said he would not compete with Ma in next month’s election.
Meanwhile, Democratic Progressive Party Spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) said yesterday that by asking Tseng to serve as his campaign manager and to request KMT lawmakers to collect signatures for his campaign, Ma had blurred the lines between the executive and legislative branches of government and harmed the nation’s democratic system.
Cheng said Ma wanted to control the legislature by asking the KMT-dominated body to be involved in his election campaign. With Ma meddling in legislative affairs, KMT lawmakers would no longer be free to exercise their right to review and monitor the government’s performance, he said.
As deputy speaker, Cheng said, Tseng should act impartially, and not belittle himself by being Ma’s “errand boy.”
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,