The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday named Chen Yi-chen (陳以真) as its candidate in the Chiayi mayoral race in November, deepening fears of a pan-blue rift amid charges of favoritism.
Chen, a former National Youth Commission minister and TV news anchor, won a public poll conducted by the KMT with 40.9 percent of the vote, defeating two other contenders.
Chen, 37, popularly known as the “Little Princess” (小公主), because of her family, which owns Nice Group, a Chiayi County-based manufacturer of personal care and consumer goods, as well as food manufacturer AGV Products Corp.
Photo: CNA
As Chen secured the party’s nomination for Chiayi mayor, tensions also rose amid fears of a split vote.
Hsiao Shu-li (蕭淑麗), a long-time KMT member with strong grassroots support, announced on Monday that she was withdrawing from the party to run as an independent in the Chiayi election.
As news of Chen winning the party poll was confirmed yesterday, Hsiao released a statement questioning the nomination process.
“The poll was merely a formality. It was so obvious that Chen was favored as the KMT candidate, handpicked by [President] Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and [Representative to the US] King Pu-tsung (金溥聰). She is being parachuted into Chiayi City. How can the public trust this process?” Hsiao asked.
Hsiao is chairperson of the Chiayi City Farmers’ Cooperative Association and a member of the “Hsiao family clan” (蕭家班), one of the most powerful and well-connected political factions in the city.
Political pundits said that having Hsiao run as an independent could split the pan-blue vote and give the pan-green candidate a better chance of winning.
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
RSS