The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday threatened to take the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to court if it nominates Taitung County Commissioner Kuang Li-cheng (鄺麗貞) for a legislative by-election next year, saying she may have made a “backroom deal” to run in the race.
Kuang registered for the Taitung legislative by-election yesterday amid claims by the DPP that it was a trade-off for her promise not to seek re-election.
KMT Secretary-General Chan Chun-po (詹春柏) said Kuang would still need to go through a primary to become the party’s nominee even if she is the only candidate to register. Her approval rating must exceed 30 percent to win the nomination, he said.
PHOTO: WANG MIN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
Yesterday, Kuang and another KMT member, Chen Yun-ping (陳允萍), picked up registration forms for the by-election. However, Chen was apparently ineligible to register because she resumed her party membership less than four months ago, prompting speculation that her interest in the position is just show.
“It was an obvious orchestrated trade-off — asking someone who is ineligible to run to pick up a form. Since Chen is ineligible, Kuang will be the sole candidate,” DPP Legislator Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) said, accusing the KMT of violating Article 97 of the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選罷法), which states that candidates or likely candidates found guilty of withdrawing from a race because of bribery or other illegal factors face a three to 10-year jail term.
“We are watching to see whether the KMT will nominate her,” DPP Spokesman Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) told a press conference.
DPP Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬) urged the Taitung Prosecutors’ Office to investigate whether a deal was struck between the KMT, Kuang and KMT Legislator Justin Huang (黃健庭).
Kuang made headlines in July last year when she came under fire for being on a trip to Europe when a typhoon hit her county. The criticism intensified as details emerged of the trip and other trips she took with government funding.
The 46-year-old made the news again recently when she dropped her re-election bid, making way for Huang to run for the post and making a by-election necessary to fill his seat in the legislature. Huang resigned as legislator last month.
The KMT has rebutted speculation of a deal, but KMT caucus secretary-general Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) called the timing of Kuang’s registration in the race “strange.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FLORA WANG AND KO SHU-LING
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