Social Democratic Party (SDP) Chairperson Fan Yun (范雲) said her party has no plans to enter into an alliance with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Founded by a coalition of veteran civic activists, the new center-left party intends to field at least 10 candidates in the legislative elections in January next year.
Over the past two months, the SDP has nominated four candidates, including Fan, who is to spearhead the party’s efforts with her legislative campaign in Taipei’s Daan District (大安).
During an appearance on a Next TV news commentary show on Friday, Fan said that instead of cooperating with the pan-blue or pan-green political camps, the SDP would prioritize cooperation with other minor parties with similar policies.
As the SDP was launched to provide a viable alternative to both the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the DPP, entering into an alliance with the DPP would run against its purpose, Fan said.
She said the nascent party would not be content to simply gain seats in the Legislative Yuan, as its goal is to bring a breath of fresh air to national politics — with an emphasis on reforms to national pensions, taxation and social welfare institutions.
She added that both major parties spend most of their time strengthening personal connections with voters — through activities such as attending weddings or funerals — instead of focusing on policy-oriented goals.
Fan rejected media reports that she recently met with DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to negotiate on candidates for next year’s legislative race.
Amid an explosion of candidates from minor parties with progressive agendas — including the SDP and the New Power Party (NPP) — media commentators have said that the DPP’s success in the elections could depend on strategic nomination strategies in cooperation with smaller parties.
With prominent social activists and advocates of Taiwanese independence among their ranks, the SDP and NPP are seen as competing for voters that lean toward the pan-green camp.
Late last month, DPP Taipei City Councilor Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said that the DPP should not abandon plans to nominate candidates in Taipei, adding that the party should carefully think over its options.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching