Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday called on the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to stop selling its controversial party assets, questioning whether it is doing so to avoid supervision from the next legislature.
“The public should take this seriously. The KMT is trying to sell off its party assets before the legislative and presidential elections,” Tsai said in response to media queries while attending a campaign rally for the party’s legislative candidate in Taoyuan’s Jhongli District (中壢).
“I suspect that [the KMT] is selling the party assets with the intention of avoiding examination and supervision of the new legislature after the election and therefore I call on KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) to refrain from selling party assets prior to the election of the new legislature and the passage of legislation on political parties and party assets,” she said.
Photo: CNA
Tsai was referring to advertisements published by the Chinese-language Commercial Times earlier this week that called for buyers for 26 plots owned by the KMT — three in Taipei, six in Taichung and 17 in Changhua — and for 80 percent of the shares of a hotel in Palau.
Tsai asked KMT presidential candidate Chu to clearly explain the funding of his and KMT legislative candidates’ campaigns, as the DPP did.
Chu should explain whether KMT assets have been used to fund election campaigns and how much has been invested so that voters have a basis for comparison between the two parties, Tsai said.
Speaking about the scheduled presidential debates, Tsai said she is glad the three parties have finally reached an agreement on the dates.
The presidential and vice presidential candidates’ debates have been scheduled with the first debate to take place on Saturday next week, the second on Dec. 27 and the third on Jan. 2.
“There will be three debates, and we are happy to have this opportunity to present our policies to voters around the nation,” Tsai said.
Tsai said that her aides would be working closely with debate organizers, while she and her team would be making their final preparations for the debates, adding that she has canceled some public appearances to prepare.
Tsai has been campaigning in Taoyuan and said that the situation is relatively more stable in southern Taiwan, so she would focus on regions where the support is relatively weaker, such as Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Miaoli and New Taipei City.
As for Jhougli, which has traditionally been a stronghold for the KMT, Tsai said that the support for the two parties is 50/50 and called on the voters to give the DPP a chance.
TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT: A US Air Force KC-135 tanker came less than 1,000 feet of an EVA plane and was warned off by a Taipei air traffic controller, a report said A US aerial refueling aircraft came very close to an EVA Airways jet in the airspace over southern Taiwan, a military aviation news Web site said. A report published by Alert 5 on Tuesday said that automatic dependent surveillance–broadcast (ADS-B) data captured by planfinder.net on Wednesday last week showed a US Air Force KC-135 tanker “coming less than 1,000 feet [305m] vertically with EVA Air flight BR225 as both aircraft crossed path south of Taiwan” that morning. The report included an audio recording of a female controller from the Taipei air traffic control center telling the unidentified aircraft that it was
A series of discussions on the legacy of martial law and authoritarianism are to be held at the Taipei International Book Exhibition this month, featuring findings and analysis by the Transitional Justice Commission. The commission and publisher Book Republic organized the series, entitled “Escaping the Nation’s Labyrinth of Memory: What Authoritarian Symbols and Records Can Tell Us,” to help people navigate narratives through textual analysis and comparisons with other nations. The four-day series is to begin on Thursday next week with a discussion between commission Chairwoman Yang Tsui (楊翠), Polish-language translator Lin Wei-yun (林蔚昀), and Polish author and artist Pawel Gorecki comparing
MOVING OUT: A former professor said that rent and early education costs in Taipei are the nation’s highest, which makes it difficult for young people to start families The population of Taipei last year fell to the lowest in 23 years due to high rent, more transportation options and the expansion of northern cities into a single metropolis, academics and city officials said on Monday. Data released this month by the Ministry of the Interior showed that the capital was home to 2,602,418 people last year, down 42,623 from 2019. The decline is second only to 1993, when the population fell by 42,828 people, while Taipei’s population was the lowest it has been since 1997. Taipei saw the biggest drop among the six special municipalities, while Taoyuan led the group in
A US aircraft carrier group led by the USS Theodore Roosevelt has entered the South China Sea to promote “freedom of the seas,” the US military said yesterday, as tensions between China and Taiwan raise concerns in Washington. US Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement that the strike group entered the South China Sea on Saturday, the same day Taiwan reported a large incursion of Chinese bombers and fighter jets into its air defense identification zone near the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島). The US military said the carrier strike group was in the South China Sea, a large part of which
RSS