The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that it respects the New Power Party’s (NPP) decision to field a large number of candidates in next year’s nine-in-one local elections, which might reduce the DPP’s seats in local councils.
The NPP is reportedly planning to field one councilor candidate for every electoral district, with prominent members of the Sunflower movement likely to be nominated.
NPP spokespeople Wu Cheng (吳崢) and Lin Ying-meng (林穎孟) are to run for Taipei councilor seats.
The party is also to nominate Green Party member Tseng Po-yu (曾柏瑜) and Tseng Kuang-chih (曾光志), a member of a civil campaign to recall underperforming lawmakers.
The move might hurt the DPP’s electoral prospects, as the two parties are on the same end of the political spectrum.
DPP spokesman Chang Chih-hao (張志豪) yesterday said the party respects the NPP’s electoral strategy, adding: “There should be no issue of collaboration.”
More than one councilor are to be elected in each electoral district, meaning that DPP and NPP candidates can be elected to the same district, so collaboration is less likely, Chang said.
The DPP would nominate its own candidates independently of the NPP and a primary election would be held for candidates seeking DPP nomination to run in the six special municipalities, Chang said.
Wu said the NPP would nominate a limited number of candidates, and its goal is to “minimize the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) seats in local councils and maximize the number of non-KMT held seats,” calling for an NPP-DPP partnership against the KMT.
However, DPP Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) said the NPP had “intentionally distorted” the DPP’s policies for political gains.
The NPP deliberately misinterpreted many of the DPP’s policies, including the Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program, a set of disciplinary measures for labor law violations, a law on ill-gotten political party assets, a proposal to lower the voting age to 18 and pension reform measures, Huang said.
“Its attack on the DPP over DPP-sponsored legislation has caused the DPP to lose points and its approval rating has dropped,” Huang said.
“The DPP realized too late that what it deemed an ally has been treating the DPP as an opponent,” Huang said.
There is still room for collaboration, but it depends on a possible reconciliation between the two parties, Huang said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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