Former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) fired another salvo at the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday, comparing calls for party unity to strategies adopted by Adolf Hitler and Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石).
Underscoring an ongoing spat between Lu and DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) over the party primaries, Lu said the DPP needed to seriously address member dissatisfaction rather than provide “empty slogans.”
“The [DPP] should not just keep yelling empty phrases about ‘unity’... and not face up to [its] problems,” she said, ostensibly in reference to Tsai’s remarks to the DPP caucus on Monday.
“Hitler and Chiang Kai-shek loved yelling ‘unity.’ Should we be like [them]?” she said.
Asked whether she supported Tsai as party leader, Lu said there was no need for her to do so.
“I am in the same boat with Taiwanese,” she added.
Her comments, the most serious accusation so far against the party where she serves as a central executive committee member, come amid deepening divisions within the DPP one month before it settles on a presidential nominee.
The break between Lu and Tsai comes despite calls by Lu to hundreds of party supporters on Sunday to “never give up on the DPP.”
The event, which drew about 400 party supporters, was organized by DPP Legislator Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) and other members of the “Kung Ma,” or “elder,” faction. A petition calling for Tsai’s resignation was circulated at the event, but did not gain serious traction.
Lu said Tsai’s absence at the event was a sign of disrespect to party members, who she said were fuming after the DPP congress decided to drop a party member vote in the legislative and presidential primaries.
“It would have been good even if she’d shown up just for a little while. Had she done this and shown respect to party members, there would have been unity,” Lu said.
A deputy secretary-general was sent to the event in lieu of Tsai, who said she had prior engagements in the south.
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
Taiwan will now have four additional national holidays after the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment today, which also made Labor Day a national holiday for all sectors. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their majority in the Legislative Yuan to pass the amendment to the Act on Implementing Memorial Days and State Holidays (紀念日及節日實施辦法), which the parties jointly proposed, in its third and final reading today. The legislature passed the bill to amend the act, which is currently enforced administratively, raising it to the legal level. The new legislation recognizes Confucius’ birthday on Sept. 28, the
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS