The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday nominated Taitung County Commissioner Kuang Li-chen (鄺麗貞) to run in the county's legislative by-election amid claims by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) that the nomination was a trade-off for an undertaking not to seek re-election as county commissioner.
The DPP threatened to take Kuang to court if the KMT nominated her for Taitung County’s legislative by-election, saying she may have made a “backroom deal” to run in the race.
KMT Legislator Justin Huang (黃健庭) resigned last month to run in the upcoming Taitung County commissioner election, making him the seventh lawmaker in the current legislature to fail to complete his legislative term.
PHOTO: CHANG CHUN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
Just as the KMT braced for a split in the election, Kuang, who had seemed determined to seek re-election, raised political eyebrows when she announced in the middle of last month that she was giving up her reelection bid and wished Huang success.
Local media speculated that the KMT promised Kuang it would nominate her for the legislative by-election after Huang resigned to run for the commissioner election.
While Kuang was the sole candidate registering for the election, KMT Secretary-General Chan Chun-po (詹春柏) has said that Kuang would still need to go through a primary to become the party’s nominee and her approval rating must exceed 30 percent to win the nomination.
The KMT yesterday held a meeting to approve Kuang’s nomination. They also nominated Taiping Mayor Yu Wen-chin (余文欽) to run in Taichung County’s legislative by-election.
The Taichung legislative by-election will be held to fill the seat left vacant by former KMT legislator Chiang Lien-fu (江連福), whose election status was annulled over vote-buying.
The party has yet to decide its nominee for Nantou County’s legislative by-election. The seat is left vacant by Cheng-ching (廖正井), whose election was annuled because of bribery.
During yesterday’s two-hour meeting, which was chaired by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who doubles as KMT chairman, participants proposed holding Central Standing Committee meetings in different locations to dovetail with campaign activities in the run-up to next month’s local elections.
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