Former premier Yu Shyi-kun of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the party’s candidate in the New Taipei City mayoral election, has found himself caught between a rock and a hard place — facing rumor-mongering within the party and not knowing who his election rival will be.
“I’d rather look to the future than dwell on the past... I believe that I will be the DPP’s official nominee ... and I have full confidence that I will win the election,” Yu told reporters yesterday before the party’s Central Executive Committee (CEC) meeting in Taipei.
The veteran politician was responding to a widely reported proposal, co-endorsed by six DPP mayors and commissioners, including Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) and Tainan Mayor William Lai (賴清德), which was initiated months before Yu was officially nominated.
There had been a rumor within the party that former DPP chairman Lin Yi-xiong (林義雄), a well-respected figure in the pan-green camp, was unhappy with the party’s imminent nomination of Yu, and his discontent prompted the proposal, which recommends that the DPP postpone its nomination in New Taipei City.
The proposal was held back by DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌).
In an interview with Newtalk, an online news Web site, Lin denied he was unhappy with Yu and wanted a new nomination, saying that he had never contacted anyone to overturn the nomination.
Responding to the issue yesterday, Chen said the six local leaders did express their “concerns” to Su and hoped that the party could nominate candidates for Taipei and New Taipei City at the same time to generate stronger momentum ahead of the year-end seven-in-one elections.
However, the idea “was never personal and was not targeted at Yu,” Chen said.
Former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) on Tuesday said that he agreed with the proposal, but the initiative was not an attempt to undermine Yu’s candidacy.
There was also rumor that if Su lost his re-election bid for chairman in May, the he would seek to replace Yu in the New Taipei City mayoral election to prolong his political career.
However, Su said to reporters after the CEC meeting that “Yu is the DPP’s official candidate in New Taipei City. The only task for us to do is to win the election.”
The other dilemma for Yu is that he did not know who his rival would be in the election as the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has yet to announce its nomination.
Yu’s rival could be incumbent Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫), but Chu has not confirmed a bid and could choose to run for president in 2016.
If that were to be the case, Yu’s rival could be Taipei Deputy Mayor Hou Yu-yi (侯友宜).
Yu said he has been campaigning hard throughout the constituency and has not given much thought to the eventual KMT candidate.
However, he acknowledged that Chu would be the strongest opponent and he was campaigning as if Chu has been nominated.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the