Former premier Yu Shyi-kun won the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) primary for the New Taipei City (新北市) mayoral election next year after defeating former lawmaker Chuang Shuo-han (莊碩漢) in a public opinion poll, the party announced yesterday.
Yu, who served as premier from 2002 to 2005, is expected to be nominated as the DPP candidate in next month’s Central Executive Committee meeting, DPP Secretary-
General Lin Hsi-yao (林錫耀) told a press conference.
In the survey conducted on Monday, which received 1,338 valid responses and pitted both candidates against incumbent New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫), Yu won, as he lost to Chu by a “smaller deficit,” Lin said.
In accordance with an agreement the candidates made before the poll, the final figures were not made public.
“We believe that Yu came out on top because of his years of experience in local government, having served as Yilan County commissioner from 1989 to 1997,” Lin said.
Responding to the proposal of Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Secretary-General Lin Chih-chia (林志嘉), who expressed an interest in running in the election and had proposed holding a public poll on possible TSU and DPP mayoral candidates to determine who would be the best candidate for the pan-green camp, Lin said the party would talk to the TSU and work out a solution.
“The challenge has just begun,” Yu said after his primary victory, adding that he would try to win back the municipality, where the DPP governed for 16 years from 1989 to 2005.
“New Taipei City residents’ hope for a change and I have formed a vision of a better economic future,” he said. “I am determined to fight to the very end for the victory.”
Yu’s victory was easier than expected as his strongest rival, DPP New Taipei City chapter director Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政), pulled out of the race on Nov. 19, citing an unfair polling mechanism.
However, Yu’s candidacy has not been received well by some DPP supporters who have expressed concern about Yu, 65, running in New Taipei City, and possibly former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), 69, running in Taipei.
Critics have said that the pair are too old and would fail to match voters’ expectations of a “generational shift.”
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS