Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) bid farewell to 2011 yesterday, saying she would make Taiwan a better country through justice and fairness if she were elected president on Jan. 14.
“Next year will be a special year, because we are going to have a female president — a president who knows how to face the tasks at hand and solve them, who can eliminate unfairness and injustice in society,” she said at a rally in Tucheng District (土城), New Taipei City (新北市).
“Are you ready?” she asked more than 10,000 flag-waving supporters who braved the cold and rain — temperatures as low as 14oC — and collectively responded “Yes!”
Photo: CNA
The DPP chairperson had a hectic schedule on the last day of the year, campaigning in New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店) and Tucheng in northern Taiwan, before heading south to Greater Kaohsiung and Greater Tainan.
New Year’s Eve marked the two-week countdown to Election Day as well as the end of an unhappy year, during which Taiwanese had been plagued by a high unemployment rate, slow economy and government inefficiency, Tsai said.
“I shook hands with many of you just now. Most of those hands were cold because you have been here for so long, but I know your hearts are warm and yearning for change. Your voices are heard,” she said.
Her administration would fulfill people’s humble wishes — to have a quality job and an apartment, raise children and take care of their parents — obligations for any government, but have been ignored by the current administration, she said.
Tsai told supporters of her plans to establish a long-term social care system and implement a 12-year compulsory education as well as an employment-driven economy, which highlights developing local markets and accelerated integration with the global community.
“We have a complete set of policies to eliminate the gap between the rich and the poor, the gap between urban and rural areas, and imbalanced regional development,” she said.
Harmony would be the central theme of her administration in both domestic and external issues, Tsai said, as her initiative of a “Taiwan consensus” does not rule out any option, including unification with China, which has been advocated by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), she added
“Rest assured, there is one thing we will definitely do, which is to improve government efficiency. And we will not capitalize the state apparatus and exploit it as a campaign tool to oppress political opponents,” Tsai said, referring to a report that alleged monitoring activities on her campaign by intelligence authorities.
Tsai said she has high hopes for New Taipei City, the nation’s largest electoral district, which has more than 3 million voters and where she lost by 5.3 percent, or about 110,000 votes, in a mayoral election last year, adding that she felt that “the tide is turning.”
Tsai then traveled south for night rallies in Kaohsiung and Tainan, where she was to attend a New Year countdown party and spend the night before attending a flag-raising ceremony this morning.
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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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching