It is unclear whether former premiers Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) will be nominated as legislators-at-large, a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) spokesperson said yesterday, adding that neither’s name has come up for discussion.
Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) fielded questions about whether the two party heavyweights, who were yesterday handed important roles in DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) election campaign, would be offered nominations.
“Based on the third meeting of a task force for the legislator-at-large nominations, neither the cases of Su, Hsieh nor [former premier] Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃) and [former vice president] Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) have been raised,” he said. “None of them ... are currently included in the list of potential nominees.”
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
The four DPP politicians have been touted as additions to the legislator-at-large roster, legislators elected based on a share of the popular vote, in order to encourage more people to vote for the party. There has been talk of including the four on the fringes of the list, so supporters have more incentive to push up the DPP’s share of the vote.
Su, who narrowly lost the presidential primaries to Tsai, has also reportedly expressed an interest in accepting a leadership role in the legislature, DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said, adding that it was the “right direction to take.”
Su remained evasive when asked about the issue yesterday, saying he trusted the nomination task force and suggesting that he would respect the decision made by Tsai, who doubles as convener of the group.
“If the DPP plans to return to government next year, the roster of legislators-at-large next term must shine in front of the public ... and I trust that the end result will be beautiful,” Su said, sidestepping a question on whether he plans to accept a nomination.
“We haven’t had this kind of contact yet,” added Su, who was yesterday confirmed as Tsai’s campaign chairman.
Hsieh, named as chief campaign commander, confirmed that proposals to include party heavyweights on the list had been floated. He said he would respect the final decision of the task force, saying: “I don’t think we’ll argue with the result if it enhances the big picture.”
In 2008, the DPP received 38.2 percent of the popular vote, landing 14 of the 34 legislator-at-large seats available, and they were equally split between male and female candidates, while the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) took 20 seats.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods