Former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday announced that she would drop out of her party’s primary for the Taipei mayoral election, but said that she will maintain her right to become a candidate.
Speaking at a concert celebrating Mother’s Day in Taipei, Lu accused the DPP’s Central Executive Committee of “doing things to accommodate certain people and making changes at the very last minute.”
“I refuse to join such a primary that destroys the party’s integrity and discipline,” the 69-year-old political veteran said.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
She added that she will retain her right to run in the race before she is convinced her party can win the election set for late November.
The DPP’s Central Executive Committee said on April 23 that the party was to decide a final candidate after evaluating the winner of the party’s primary and a “particular outsider” who has refused to join the DPP, Lu said.
The “outsider” is believed to be National Taiwan University physician Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), an independent whose views are considered to dovetail with those of the DPP and who sees himself as the best chance the pan-green camp has of beating the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) nominee, former Taipei EasyCard Corp chairman Sean Lien (連勝文).
“The party, as expected, has let factional interests and individual tactics override party ethics and discipline,” Lu said in describing the decision.
The DPP primary is to be held in two stages.
An internal poll of DPP candidates is to be conducted on Tuesday, with the winner facing off against Ko and other independent candidates in another poll expected to be held next month to determine who will represent the pan-green camp.
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
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