Over the weekend, candidates canvassed across Taipei County, which will be upgraded into Sinbei City in December, hitting the campaign trail hard in the final two-month stretch before the Nov. 27 special municipality elections.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) mayoral candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫) opened up six new campaign offices and introduced policies targeted at voters in traditionally pan-green leaning areas in the county.
“Our victory will start right here in the [Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)] stronghold of Sanchong City (三重),” he told thousands of supporters as he opened up the new Sanchong campaign office yesterday. “We have the confidence ... that we will defeat our opponent here this time around.”
Chu, describing himself as a person that would “get things done,” expressed confidence that he would be able to carry voters in Sanchong and Sinjhuang (新莊) cities, two of the three areas that voted for DPP candidate Lo Wen-chia (羅文嘉) during the 2005 mayoral elections.
Some of Chu’s key election themes in the areas include river cleanup, infrastructure development, along with an acceleration of city renewal projects and an expansion of the MRT network.
"My opponent says [it] is not feasible and that the MRT is a piece of beef that Sinbei City cannot afford,” Chu said. “But the truth is ... the beef has already been bought and it is ready to cook. The construction is going to start and still [DPP Sinbei mayoral candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) ] doesn’t know this.”
In a rare public display, Chu and Taipei County Commissioner Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋), who Chu defeated in April to grab the KMT nomination, took the stage together at the opening of Chu’s campaign office in Sinjhuang on Saturday night.
Chou said that losing to Chu was part of a democratic process and he used the opportunity to take a jab at the opposition party after Kaohsiung County Commissioner Yang Chiu-hsing (楊秋興) announced his independent bid for Greater Kaohsiung mayor and resigned from the DPP.
“Even if [my] poll results showed me losing by just 1 percent, it is still a loss. As a result, I supported the more talented Chu to take over,” Chou said. “It was unlike the DPP, where the losers in the primaries were not satisfied with the results.”
According to Chu’s campaign headquarters, Chu took part in more than 10 publicized election events over the weekend, including setting up campaign offices in Sindian (新店) and Sijhih (汐止) cities, and Jinshan (金山) and Tamsui (淡水) townships.
Chu’s DPP opponent Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), more accustomed to taking part in two or three election events per day, also took part in a large number of activities over the weekend, in the latest sign that she has ramped up her campaign.
In one of the most high-profile events since she announced her candidacy in May, she drew thousands of supporters to Banciao Stadium yesterday afternoon, as she was joined by Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), the DPP’s Taipei City mayoral candidate.
The crowd roared when Tsai and Su, hand-in-hand, announced they would work together to ensure that the two KMT-administered cities would change hands after November, giving the DPP a boost in the 2011 legislative and 2012 presidential elections.
“The November elections will be a key [test] for Taiwan and for the [governing] party,” she said, calling it a review of KMT governance in both central and local governments. “If you are unhappy with them, tell them by using your votes.”
Turnout was estimated by the DPP to be about 5,000.
Tsai’s campaign has been dogged by KMT allegations that her campaign would be used as a springboard for her presidential ambitions. Tsai, along with Su, are recognized in some DPP circles to be the party’s best chances to go up against President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in 2012.
However, Tsai said the rally proved that she was in the race “not only for real — but that [we] really have a fighting chance.”
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:
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