Several Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials yesterday privately expressed concern that Kaohsiung County Commissioner Yang Chiu-hsing's (楊秋興) latest remarks proclaiming his intention to run in the Greater Kaohsiung mayoral race could trigger a “domino effect” and inspire Tainan Mayor Hsu Tain-tsair (許添財) to follow suit.
Yang, or the “Southern Little Giant” as he is affectionately called by supporters, was said to be left fuming after the results of a party primary in May which leaned heavily in favor of Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊), despite both having been ranked in the top three of a widely read governance survey.
Hsu was also said to be dissatisfied with losing the primary to DPP Legislator William Lai (賴清德), who has been nominated as the DPP's candidate in Greater Tainan.
When asked for comment yesterday, Hsu said he only learned about Yang’s intentions through the media, but added that he would send Yang his best wishes.
Yang deserved encouragement for his passionate service to the public, Hsu added.
While Hsu did not give a clear answer on speculation that he might launch his own bid, Hsu did say that the DPP should ask itself how it managed “to turn Yang, a widely respected person” against his own party.
If Yang does follow through on his word, his entry is sure to shake up the elections, set to take place on Nov. 27, turning it into a three-way contest with Chen and long-term Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順). Previously, election polls had pointed to a virtual shoo-in for Chen.
If Yang does run in the election, the pressure would be on Chen to fend him off without damaging his support base, mostly pan-green supporters in rural towns and villages.
“The DPP simply cannot handle a party split,” DPP Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬) said.
He added that Yang's addition to the Greater Kaohsiung race would mean that the opposition party “would lose for sure.”
“It's the worst-case scenario. But we are still hoping that things will turn out all right,” a source close to Chen's campaign said, adding that they would attempt to enlist the help of party heavyweights to talk Yang out of the decision.
Yang's apparent decision to join the Greater Kaohsiung mayoral race came as a surprise to many senior DPP officials, who said as recently as last week that they believed he would look at the big picture and refrain from damaging the party that he had been a part for more than a decade.
Yang and Chen were competing after a jointly supported proposal was accepted by the Executive Yuan in September last year, paving the way for Kaohsiung County to be merged with neighboring Kaohsiung City and upgraded into a special municipality called Greater Kaohsiung in December.
Urging Yang to change his mind, Chen's campaign spokesperson Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟) said that a party split would undoubtedly disappoint many pan-green voters.
These comments draw attention to what could be Yang's biggest challenges: How to raise money, endorsements and support without help from local and national branches of the DPP in an area known for its staunch support of DPP candidates.
Right now, it seems that the DPP is hoping it won't come to this. Gao yesterday urged DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to call in support from two party elders, former chairpersons Lin I-hsiung (林義雄) and Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良), to pressure Yang to drop his bid.
Tsai is also understood to have traveled personally to Kaohsiung several times in the past two months in attempts to hash out a deal between Chen and Yang.
Appealing to Yang’s loyalty to the party where he once served as a Central Standing Committee member and a legislator, Tsai said the DPP was the commissioner's “long-term home, full of his friends and people he has worked hard with.”
“Only the people in his home truly care about him and will truly think of [what’s best] for him. We do hope that he thinks this through,” Tsai said.
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