As political parties estimate how many legislative seats they might win in next Saturday’s polls, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has said it hopes to garner 60, while the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said it aims to secure 50 in the 113-seat legislature.
The People First Party (PFP), whose chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) is in a three-way presidential race with President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the KMT and DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), said it hoped to win up to 13 seats, while the New Party and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) hoped they could garner three and two seats respectively.
DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said it was very likely that neither the KMT nor the DPP would win more than half of the legislative seats, so the “power map” at the nation’s highest law-making body could change.
In 10 constituencies, pan-blue parties — the KMT, the PFP and the New Party — are locked in a battle for legislative seats. In all but one of the cases, the battle is between the KMT and the PFP, although all three pan-blue parties have nominated a contender in Kinmen.
In the pan-green camp, which includes the DPP and the TSU, the TSU has not nominated any candidates for the regional polls. It simply hopes to win more than 5 percent of the vote to earn two legislator-at-large seats.
The Central Election Commission (CEC) estimated that in the election for the nation’s 13th president and vice president, as well as the eighth Legislative Yuan, there would be 18,090,255 eligible voters, an increase of 768,633 from the 2008 elections.
The majority of the new voters are those who have turned 20 since the last election, while others are naturalized citizens, such as foreign spouses and new immigrants.
CEC officials said each voter will have three ballots: one for president and vice president, one for legislator and one for political party.
The presidential ballot is pink, while the political party ballot is white. The regional legislator ballot is yellow, but “plains Aborigines” will elect their legislators using light blue ballots and “mountain Aborigines” light green ones.
Polling stations will open at 8am and close at 4pm on Saturday. The CEC expects to finish the vote count by 10pm.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
Taiwanese celebrities Hank Chen (陳漢典) and Lulu Huang (黃路梓茵) announced yesterday that they are planning to marry. Huang announced and posted photos of their engagement to her social media pages yesterday morning, joking that the pair were not just doing marketing for a new show, but “really getting married.” “We’ve decided to spend all of our future happy and hilarious moments together,” she wrote. The announcement, which was later confirmed by the talent agency they share, appeared to come as a surprise even to those around them, with veteran TV host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) saying he was “totally taken aback” by the news. Huang,
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult
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