Time is running short for a proposed coalition between the Social Democratic Party (SDP), the New Power Party (NPP) and the Green Party Taiwan (GPT), but further negotiations do not appear to be on the agenda in the near term, given the key players’ travel schedules.
GPT co-convener Lee Ken-cheng (李根政) said he hopes the three parties could discuss the terms of cooperation item by item, adding that there will be a definite result by the end of this month and that communication with the NPP would not be abandoned.
If the three parties intend to form a coalition to offer a list of legislator-at-large candidates under the same banner and increase their chances of reaching a stipulated 5 percent support threshold for legislator-at-large seats, they must do so by the end of this month to complete the administrative process of party registration — which generally takes two to three months — before the legislative nomination deadline in November.
However, the campaign schedules of the three parties apparently clash with each other.
NPP acting president Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) is to visit western US cities to deliver speeches and raise funds for the NPP starting on Thursday, while NPP founder and legislative candidate Freddy Lim (林昶佐) and SDP founder and legislative candidate Fan Yun (范雲) are in Pennsylvania addressing Taiwanese-American communities.
Lee plans to visit Taiwan’s outlying islands in the near future, he said.
The SDP and the GPT met to discuss a coalition last month and said in a joint statement that they hoped to form a coalition with the NPP, but many NPP members said they were not aware of the meeting in advance or of the meeting’s proceedings.
“We would like to come up with a definite conclusion by the end of July, be it coalition or not. Procrastination is not the way out,” Lee said.
A consensus must be reached about whether the parties would form a coalition or campaign separately, which would also provide voters with a clearer understanding, Lee added.
“The three parties would not be united simply for one single goal, and the parties must negotiate over the terms of cooperation item by item, including priority bills and legislator-at-large nominations,” he said.
“The GPT and SDP have reached a cooperation framework, but have not excluded possible collaboration with the NPP,” he said.
Lim said that the NPP had just finished its first round of campaigning to publicize the party’s platform, and its district legislator candidates are on tight schedules, but the NPP would continue discussing the potential partnerships with other parties, including the Democratic Progressive Party.
Huang echoed Lim’s words, saying that the NPP would exert utmost sincerity in negotiating with friendly parties.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai