Amid speculation that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) would seek to work with “the third political force” in next year’s legislative election, the Green Party Taiwan (GPT) yesterday said that it would seek to collaborate with smaller parties that had “progressive values,” but not the nation’s major political parties.
While media outlets reported yesterday that former DPP chairperson Lin I-hsiung (林義雄) had met with DPP lawmakers saying that he could help to bring the DPP and the third political force together to challenge Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators and candidates in next year’s legislative election, the GPT firmly rejected the idea.
“Lin is a very respectable pioneer [in social movements] and we fully respect his views,” GPT co-convener Lee Ken-cheng (李根政) told a news conference outside DPP headquarters in Taipei yesterday. “However, we believe that Taiwan needs an independent third political force.”
“The GPT will not negotiate with the DPP,” Lee added.
The DPP and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) have been in power and both have disappointingly not been good ruling and opposition parties, he said. Therefore, the GPT would not cooperate with either party.
Lee said that he understands that the DPP is seeking to prevent unqualified politicians in the party from running by yielding to candidates from the third political force in certain constituencies, “but the DPP should not try to solve its internal problems by harming the independence of the third political force.”
Lee said that the GPT will nominate at least 10 regional candidates of its own, and would not be absent from seeking at-large seats.
In addition, in an effort to bolster the third political force, the GPT would seek to work with “smaller parties with progressive values,” including the New Power Party (NPP) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), adding that the GPT has been in talks with the two parties on cooperation plans.
Lee said that the GPT, the NPP, and the SDP are discussing cooperation ideas.
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:
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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