Former Taipei EasyCard Corp chairman Sean Lien (連勝文) will not decide whether to join next year’s Taipei mayoral election based on polling results of his support rates, his aide said.
Lien, son of former vice president Lien Chan (連戰), last week said that he plans to announce his decision on whether to join the race next month.
Although declining to confirm his candidacy, Sean Lien has made more frequent visits to borough wardens, city councilors and grass-roots groups in Taipei, in addition to meeting recently with the press at private gatherings.
While his possible opponents in the pan-green camp — National Taiwan University Hospital physician Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) and lawyer Wellington Koo (顧立雄) — have been stepping up campaigning for their Taipei bids, the 43-year-old Sean Lien will maintain his pace and polls will not affect his decision, his special assistant William Hsu (徐弘庭) said.
Recent opinion polls have suggested that Sean Lien is the favorite to win the Taipei mayoral race, while showing that support for Ko, an independent, is much higher than for other candidates in the pan-green camp.
For the younger Lien, his wealthy background and complicated political and financial connections are issues to be considered in his candidacy bid, in addition to personal safety concerns.
In an interview with FTV on Tuesday night, Lien Chan said he would support his son’s candidacy bid if he decides to run.
As to the KMT reportedly urging Sean Lien to move out of his residence in The Palace (帝寶), a luxury apartment complex in Taipei, Lien Chan said that he and his wife had purchased the apartment unit and asked Sean Lien to move in for security after he was shot in the cheek in 2010 during a campaign rally in New Taipei City (新北市).
In response to concerns that his wealth would have a negative impact on a campaign, Hsu said the apartment was registered under Lien Chan’s wife’s, Lien Fang-yu (連方瑀), name and that Sean Lien did not own the property.
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do