The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is planning a quiet personnel reshuffle ahead of the legislative and presidential elections next year, sources said.
DPP officials refused to confirm or deny speculation that former premier Su Tseng-chang’s (蘇貞昌) staffers would be among those most affected by the reorganization.
The move, set to take place within the next two weeks, was ostensibly triggered by Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) narrow win over Su in the party primaries last month.
The changes are mainly aimed at reconsolidating the DPP and the Tsai and Su camps, which kept a safe distance to ensure neutrality during the primary.
Sources said several Su staffers will be offered posts in Tsai’s campaign, the DPP or the party think tank, the New Frontier Foundation.
Key figures in charge of advertising and media relations are also expected to be shuffled from the party to Tsai’s campaign office when it re-launches later this month, including party officials who were unwilling to choose sides between Tsai and Su during the primaries.
Party sources confirmed that Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁), a former Presidential Office deputy -secretary-general and Tsai supporter, would be appointed to lead the DPP’s Policy Research and Coordinating Committee.
More changes are expected to be announced throughout the week after Tsai, who took an extended leave-of-absence during the primaries, returns to her post as chairperson today.
Meanwhile, Tsai’s campaign downplayed speculation that she was looking for a running mate with economic experience for the upcoming elections.
Several Chinese-language media reports quoted party insiders close to her campaign as saying that Tsai was looking for an older “waishengren” vice presidential candidate.
Preferably the candidate would also come from a business background to make up for Tsai’s perceived shortcomings and capture a wider vote, the reports alleged.
Tsai campaign spokesperson Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) said the speculation did not “reflect Tsai’s ideas” on an ideal running mate.
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
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
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,