Former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) yesterday encouraged anyone willing to serve Taipei residents to run in the 2018 municipal elections, after former Control Yuan member Ger Yeong-kuang (葛永光) became the first person to say he would run for mayor.
Ger, a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) member and professor at National Taiwan University, announced his bid on Sunday in Los Angeles.
“Professor Ger and I go way back. Before he had the idea [of running for mayor], he discussed the matter with me. Of course I strongly encourage every outstanding talent willing to be at the service of Taipei [to run for mayor],” Hau said in a statement.
Hau, who was mayor from 2006 to 2014, said he believed it was good for a potential candidate to prepare early for an election so they can familiarize themselves with city affairs and give voters time to get to know them.
The position of mayor is extremely important and candidates should not rely on intensive media coverage in the last few months of a campaign for publicity, he said.
“They should get to know about the city’s affairs step-by-step and learn about the needs of residents so that they can table well thought out policies,” he said.
In an interview published yesterday in the Chinese-language Apple Daily, Ger dismissed speculation that he was only interested in running because of Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) low opinion poll ratings.
“I started thinking about competing in the race after the presidential election earlier this year,” Ger said, adding that his bid was aimed at maintaining a balance between the KMT and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Allowing the DPP to dominate the political spectrum would hurt Taiwan and its democratic system, Ger said.
Ger said Committee of Illegal Party Asset Settlement Chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) could be a potential rival in the 2018 race.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
The National Immigration Agency has banned two Chinese from returning to Taiwan, after they published social media content it described as disrespectful to national sovereignty. The agency imposed a two-month ban on a Chinese man surnamed Liang (梁) and a permanent ban on a woman surnamed Yang (楊), an influencer with 23 million followers, in October last year and last week respectively. Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) yesterday said on the sidelines of a legislative meeting that Chinese visitors to Taiwan are required to comply with the rules and regulations governing their entry permits. The government has handled the ban and
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