The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday unveiled a new TV advertisement ahead of Saturday’s legislative by-elections — the first and only ad the cash-strapped party intends to run.
The party has been scrambling to keep up with a series of attack ads launched by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) last week that took aim at Hualien DPP candidate Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴).
DPP Secretary-General Su Jia-chuan (蘇嘉全) said the ads focused on a positive theme in spite of the “tens of millions of dollars funneled by the KMT into its negative attacks on DPP candidates.”
Originally set to run tomorrow, the 30-second spot features each of the party’s four candidates in the Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Chiayi and Hualien by-elections and is voiced over by DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
PLEA
The ad features an impassioned plea by the party leader that every seat is equally important for the DPP and that the party would work harder to listen to local voices.
“It is a sense of pride for us to attain the public’s trust and speak for them,” Tsai says in the ad.
LOW ON CASH
The release of the ad comes amid intense media speculation that the DPP is running out of money to fund media expenses ahead of the by-elections.
Chinese-language cable TV channel TVBS reported last week that the party had only budgeted NT$2.5 million (US$78,000) for the four seats up for grabs on Saturday and the earlier by-elections on Jan. 9.
Party officials confirmed that this would be the only TV commercial released by party headquarters before Saturday.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
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