Sunflower movement leader Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) yesterday urged young people to return home and vote in tomorrow’s elections, endorsing “third force” parties in a push against Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) calls to concentrate “pan-green” votes.
“This election is extremely crucial and has the largest number of new parties in Taiwan’s history, with the appearance of many parties advocating progressive reform,” he said. “If we could get some of these new parties into the legislature, we would be able to change the political spectrum so that we have more choices than just ‘blue’ and ‘green.’”
He urged voters to use their conscience and disregard statements from DPP officials calling for “pan-green” voters to concentrate their ballots to protect the party’s “safe” list of legislator-at-large candidates.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
“Respect your own thoughts — vote for whoever you intended to vote for and do not change just because people are yelling for votes to be concentrated,” he said, adding that calls for voters to “give up” one party to “save” another were “extremely undemocratic.”
Only if both the New Power Party and Green Party–Social Democratic Party Alliance make it into the legislature could Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) seats be minimized, he said.
Lin made his remarks at an alliance event next to Taipei Main Station calling for young people to return home to vote in the presidential and legislative elections.
A group of activists stood with Lin and alliance candidate Lu Hsin-chieh (呂欣潔) beside the steam locomotive display outside the station, shouting slogans calling for young people to vote for the alliance as a “steam engine for democracy,” before passing out party material.
Lin said that campaigning yesterday and today is crucial because young people have not jumped to return home and vote, based on current ticket sales.
Meanwhile a number of authors, directors and artists voiced their support for the alliance at a separate event yesterday, including director Cheng Yu-chieh (鄭有傑), writer-director Lou Yi-an (樓一安) and documentary filmmaker Yang Li-chou (楊力州).
Cheng said he is willing to support the alliance because the party is concerned about environmental protection and land rights.
The party represent a new choice, he said.
Lou said that he believed that the nation needed a party with progressive values, calling both the KMT and DPP “less than ideal,” because they have always been focused on governing.
He is willing to support the alliance because he was attracted to its concern for the environment and housing rights, he said.
Additional reporting by Chen Yu-fu
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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