Cash prizes are to be awarded this year to Taipei borough wardens who get their constituents to polling stations in an effort to increase voter turnout in the Nov. 29 elections, the Taipei City Government’s Department of Civil Affairs Commissioner Huang Lu Ching-ju (黃呂錦茹) said yesterday.
She made her remarks at a press conference alongside people representing immigrants and young voters, urging city residents of all backgrounds to vote. The department is responsible for the city’s election budget.
While Taipei’s voter turnout has historically been higher than that of most other cities and counties, apathy toward the mayoral candidates could hinder the department reaching its voter turnout goal of 71 percent, Huang said.
The previous mayoral election in 2009 had a 70.65 percent voter turnout, according to department statistics.
Huang said that next month, the department would provide cash rewards to borough wardens, borough administrative secretaries and district offices for increasing voter turnout in their respective boroughs or districts.
Borough chiefs and administrative secretaries would be given a supermarket gift card for NT$1,000 for each percentage point that voter turnout in their boroughs exceeds 71 percent, she said, adding that district offices which reach this goal would be given NT$10,000 to be divided among their workers.
She said that this would be the first time that such a financial reward for increasing voter turnout has been provided during a mayoral election.
National Taiwan University politics professor Wang Ye-li (王業立) yesterday said that while it was impossible to predict how effective the new measures would be at increasing the voting rate, any increase would likely benefit the campaign of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate Sean Lien (連勝文).
Although voter affiliation in Taipei is strongly tilted toward the pan-blue camp, the KMT’s supporters have been apathetic about Lien’s candidacy, he said.
Democratic Progressive Party City Councilor Chien Yu-yen (簡余晏), the spokeswoman for independent Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), yesterday said “the majority of borough wardens belong to the KMT.”
“We call on the Taipei City Government to maintain neutrality and avoid excess executive intervention in the election,” she said, adding that the voting rate in normal democratic countries is about 50 percent, unless there is extreme political polarization.
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
The Central Emergency Operations Center (CEOC) has made a three-phased compulsory evacuation plan for Hualien County’s Mataian River (馬太鞍溪) disaster zone ahead of the potential formation of a typhoon. The plan includes mandatory vertical evacuation using air-raid-style alarms if needed, CEOC chief coordinator Chi Lien-cheng (季連成) told a news conference in the county yesterday. Volunteers would be prohibited from entering the disaster area starting tomorrow, the retired general said. The first phase would be relocating vulnerable residents, including elderly people, disabled people, pregnant women and dialysis patients, in shelters and hospitals, he said. The second phase would be mandatory evacuation of residents living in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
COUNTERMEASURE: Taiwan was to implement controls for 47 tech products bound for South Africa after the latter downgraded and renamed Taipei’s ‘de facto’ offices The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is still reviewing a new agreement proposed by the South African government last month to regulate the status of reciprocal representative offices, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. Asked about the latest developments in a year-long controversy over Taiwan’s de facto representative office in South Africa, Lin during a legislative session said that the ministry was consulting with legal experts on the proposed new agreement. While the new proposal offers Taiwan greater flexibility, the ministry does not find it acceptable, Lin said without elaborating. The ministry is still open to resuming retaliatory measures against South
RSS