Former Taipei EasyCard Corp chairman Sean Lien (連勝文) has still not declared whether he would run in the Taipei mayoral election, but will announce his decision by the end of the month, an aide said.
Speculation about Lien’s election bid emerged last year as other potential candidates from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) revealed their intention to join the election campaign.
In an interview with the United Daily News published yesterday, Lien said his answer to the question of whether he would join the race could change from “maybe” to “yes” amid continuous encouragement from supporters and friends.
Lien’s aide and close friend, KMT Central Standing Committee member Lee Te-wei (李德維), said yesterday that Lien has yet to confirm his bid for the election and that he would explain his decision to the public later this month.
“Mr Lien will make public his decision [on the election bid], whether his answer is yes or no,” Lee said.
Lien is the eldest son of former vice president Lien Chan (連戰). As a member of the Lien family, Sean Lien commands popular support in the pan-blue camp, making him a viable contender in the year-end local election.
In the interview, Sean Lien discussed his ambition to strengthen Taipei’s development and raise the city’s international competitiveness, stressing his efforts to start a hedge fund business in Hong Kong to counteract criticism that he comes from a wealthy background.
He also dismissed allegations that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who has had “problematic” relations with Lien Chan, favors KMT Legislator Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) for the post and plans to launch a smear campaign against Sean Lien, saying he never believes rumors.
The KMT and Ma, who doubles as party chairman, have dismissed allegations that the party would not be supportive of Sean Lien because of the rift between the president and Lien Chan.
Although Sean Lien has yet to decide whether to run, several polls have made him the favorite over his potential rivals in the pan-green camp, including lawyer Wellington Koo (顧立雄) of the DPP and physician Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), director of National Taiwan University Hospital’s department of traumatology.
Former KMT chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) yesterday expressed confidence about the party’s performance in the Taipei mayoral election, saying that the party could only lose the election if there was a split in the party.
“There is no reason for us to lose the mayoral election in Taipei, unless we fail to unite and continue to spread rumors about each other. As long as we can avoid making such mistakes, we shall win the election in Taipei,” Wu said yesterday when attending the KMT Taipei branch’s New Year gathering.
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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