Presidential candidate hopeful Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) campaign team is denying speculation that it has been seeking an arrangement for the primaries that would see the runner-up head the legislature or party caucus.
“Her campaign office has never discussed this issue,” Tsai spokesperson Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) said. “It’s most likely an opinion from party politicians or viewpoints expressed by grassroots members.”
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has been recently trying to find a way to avoid a damaging showdown between Tsai and its other presidential frontrunner, former premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌).
Photo: Tsai Tsung-hsien, Taipei Times
While Su has not yet announced his bid, the two are both seen as heavily favored to take the DPP nominations, garnering significant support within the party.
DPP politicians, concerned that the likelihood of a joint ticket between the two remains small, have floated proposals that would allow the runner-up to take another important role, such as legislative speaker or caucus chief.
Local media reports, citing sources close to the Tsai campaign, have written that her office has unofficially adopted a guideline that: “Winners take the presidency and losers run for legislative speaker” — a proposal it has denied.
Responding to those rumors, Su on Saturday acknowledged the speculation, but said that running for president was a “serious business and not about arranging posts.”
Sources within his campaign yesterday said that the former premier is close to an announcement, but a spokesperson denied that it will take place either today or tomorrow.
Both Su and Tsai, who declared her candidacy on Friday, ramped up their campaign events over the weekend, heading south to meet with farmers and rural residents.
The competition between the two contenders has led to -increasing friction between their campaign teams. Tsai’s office on Saturday said that supporters were asked earlier to skip her high-profile address on Friday.
Former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), who earlier this month announced her bid, has largely stayed out of the spotlight in the past few days, but has also been busy ramping up her campaign in the south.
A final decision on the DPP ticket is expected on May 4 at the latest, although it could take place much sooner pending negotiations on April 6. If the negotiations fall through, the DPP will hold telephone polls between April 25 and April 29.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the