Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), director of National Taiwan University Hospital’s department of traumatology, yesterday said that he would continue his efforts and be prepared for the Taipei mayoral election next year, in the wake of the latest opinion poll listing him as the second-most popular mayoral hopeful in the pan-green camp after former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
“The ranking doesn’t mean much. I will continue to prepare for the race and think about whether or not I should give up medical practice for politics,” he said on the sidelines of the launch of DPP Taipei City Councilor Chien Yu-yen’s (簡余晏) service office in Taipei.
The poll, released by the Chinese-language China Times Weekly yesterday, showed that of the possible Taipei mayoral candidates in the DPP, Tsai received the highest support rate of 18 percent, while 14 percent of respondents said they supported Ko.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) trailed behind Tsai and Ko in the survey with 11 percent support, while former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), who said earlier this week that she would consider running in the election, had the support of 5 percent of respondents.
Ko has enjoyed growing popularity in the pan-green camp despite not being a DPP member and there has been calls for the DPP to recruit Ko as its candidate in the election.
According to the survey, the former chairman of Taipei EasyCard Corporation, Sean Lien (連勝文), is the potential mayoral candidate who enjoys the most support in the pan-blue camp at 23 percent, followed by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) with 12 percent support.
Overall support for Lien, who has remained tight-lipped about his rumored intention to run, is higher than for Tsai. If the Taipei mayoral election was held immediately, 36 percent of respondents said they would vote for Lien, while 33 percent said they would support Tsai.
Lien, one of the sons of former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰), has been seen as the most likely candidate to succeed incumbent Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌). He has not yet revealed an intention to join the mayoral race, but has continued to keep close contact with local borough chiefs and city councilors to maintain his support base.
The poll was conducted on Monday among 812 Taipei residents.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS