A total of 54 hopefuls registered on Friday, the last day of candidacy registration, to run for 17 seats in the year-end mayoral and county commissioner elections, information from the Central Election Commission showed.
Except for Taoyuan County, where the Hakka party nominated one candidate, the race will be among the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and independents.
In Kinmen County, which has a population of about 85,000, seven candidates will vie for the county commissioner seat, which is the highest number of hopefuls registered to compete for one seat.
The hopefuls in the Kinmen race include independent candidate Wu Cheng-tien (吳成典), a former KMT legislator, and the KMT’s nominee Lee Wo-shi (李沃士).
In Taitung County, with incumbent County Commissioner Kuang Li-chen (鄺麗貞) agreeing to withdraw from the race at the last minute, the KMT has been able to integrate its local factions to make it a two-way battle with the DPP candidate.
In Pingtung, Yunlin and Yilan counties, the KMT and the DPP will each field one candidate, which means that those seats will be a straight fight between the two major parties.
This is not the case in Hsinchu, Chiayi or Nantou counties, where there are four aspirants for each seat. Among the hopefuls in the Hsinchu County race are KMT-nominated Legislator Chiu Ching-chun (邱鏡淳) and Hsinchu County Council Speaker Chang Pi-chin (張碧琴), who was expelled by the KMT on Monday for registering for the county commissioner election. It will be three-way races in Miaoli, Taoyuan, Hualien, Penghu, Lienchiang (Matsu) and Changhua counties, as well as in Chiayi, Keelung and Hsinchu cities.
In Yunlin County, a recent survey by the United Daily News put incumbent DPP Commissioner Su Chih-fen (蘇治芬) far ahead of the KMT’s last-minute nominee, Wu Wei-chi (吳威志).
In Hualien County, KMT Legislator Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁), who is running as an independent, is leading KMT nominee Tu Li-hua (杜麗華) and Hualien County Deputy Commissioner Chang Chih-ming (張志明), who recently withdrew from the KMT to run as an independent candidate, the newspaper poll showed.
Meanwhile, a KMT official said yesterday the party would expel those who do not toe the party line and run as independents in elections.
Juan Kang-meng (阮剛猛), director of the KMT’s Evaluation and Disciplinary Committee, said that five KMT members, including Fu, Wu and Chang Chi-ming will be expelled when the KMT steering committee meets today.
The year-end “three-in-one” elections for mayors and county commissioners, city and county councilors, and city and township heads will be held on Dec. 5.
Because seven cities and counties — Taipei County, Taichung City and county, Tainan City and county and Kaohsiung City and county — will be upgraded or merged into municipalities, the elections will be held in only 17 cities and counties.
The polls will be the first crucial test of the government’s popularity since the harsh criticism it faced over the 700 deaths, massive flooding and landslides that occurred in the aftermath of Typhoon Morakot in August.
The elections are also seen as an indicator toward the outcome of next year’s municipal elections and the 2012 presidential election.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS