Former department of health director-general Twu Shiing-jer (涂醒哲), the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) candidate for Chiayi mayor in the Nov. 29 elections, said he is confident of gaining voters’ trust to win the election.
The 63-year-old is facing only Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate Chen Yi-chen (陳以真), after independent candidate Hsiao Shu-li (蕭淑麗) dropped out of the race.
In a recent interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper), Twu alleged that the oligarchic power structure of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who also serves as KMT chairman, and National Security Council Secretary-General King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) uses KMT assets and government resources to work with business conglomerates run by wealthy families to control local political factions and influence election outcomes.
Therefore, Twu said, he is facing an unequal fight and is asking voters to “choose the best person, not the wealthiest,” while presenting his platform to turn Chiayi into a city of “food safety, happiness for the elderly and referendum votes for citizens.”
“Chiayi is in the same situation as Taipei. It is a battle of the privileged versus the common folk. I am of the common people, the same as Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), the independent Taipei mayoral candidate,” he said. “We are running against candidates with ‘princeling’ status, who are backed by wealthy family conglomerates and hand-picked by the Ma-King oligarchy. How could they understand ordinary citizen’s daily living hardships?”
“Chen was a National Youth Commission minister, but did she go visit the students involved in the Sunflower movement? She was afraid of encouraging the student movement and also did not support the causes espoused by the youth movement,” Twu said, adding that he, on the other hand, visited the students in the Sunflower movement and delivered a talk on citizen democracy at the time.
Running on the campaign slogan of “Bold leadership, Chuluo, heading up for Taiwan” (氣魄 諸羅 台灣頭, in which Chuluo is the original Taiwanese name for Chiayi), Twu said he wants to remind Chiayi residents of their traditional spirit of not becoming subjugated to autocratic regimes, and return the glory and pride of old Chuluo.
“I grew up and went to school in Chiayi. When I was DPP legislator, I set up offices here and stayed in service here for five years. We formed the Taiwan Society Chiayi (嘉義社) two years ago, so I was not parachuted into the city. By comparison, my KMT opponent did not grow up nor go to school here. She only registered her residency here in January this year,” he said.
“A mayor should be elected for competence, bold leadership and creativity,” he said, while criticizing Chen’s tactics of using sweet talk and acting cutesy to solicit votes as phony pretensions.
Chiayi is losing population due to few employment opportunities, he said.
“When I entered the race last time, I advocated to consolidate Chiayi City and Chiayi County together with Yunlin County into one special agricultural municipality. Before that can take place, regional functions and resources must be integrated,” Twu said.
“Chiayi should develop special zones for the green energy industry and turn the old tobacco plant into a business development park for young entrepreneurs,” he added.
“We can make this a healthy and happy city for senior citizens. It can become like Florida in the US, where outsiders want to move to, which will spur on economic and population growth,” he said.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
NUMBERS IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
Temperatures are forecast to drop steadily as a continental cold air mass moves across Taiwan, with some areas also likely to see heavy rainfall, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. From today through early tomorrow, a cold air mass would keep temperatures low across central and northern Taiwan, and the eastern half of Taiwan proper, with isolated brief showers forecast along Keelung’s north coast, Taipei and New Taipei City’s mountainous areas and eastern Taiwan, it said. Lows of 11°C to 15°C are forecast in central and northern Taiwan, Yilan County, and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, and 14°C to 17°C
STEERING FAILURE: The first boat of its class is experiencing teething issues as it readies for acceptance by the navy, according to a recent story about rudder failure The Hai Kun (海鯤), the nation’s first locally built submarine, allegedly suffered a total failure of stern hydraulic systems during the second round of sea acceptance trials on June 26, and sailors were forced to manually operate the X-rudder to turn the submarine and return to port, news Web site Mirror Daily reported yesterday. The report said that tugboats following the Hai Kun assisted the submarine in avoiding collisions with other ships due to the X-rudder malfunctioning. At the time of the report, the submarine had completed its trials and was scheduled to begin diving and surfacing tests in shallow areas. The X-rudder,
RSS