Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) yesterday said he would join the KMT’s primary for next year’s Taipei mayoral election for the fifth time, pledging to make Taipei a proud city again.
Ting, a 63-year-old KMT member who had served seven terms as a legislator since 1990, made the announcement on Facebook, saying he would hold an online candidacy presentation today to deliver to Taipei residents his political ideas and vision for the capital.
Over the past four years, Taipei’s development has stalled to an extent that the global competitiveness of the nation and its capital have been undermined, Ting said.
“We cannot afford to wait another four years,” he said, expressing confidence in his ability to unite the residents of Taipei to return the city to its former glory.
In a depature from the traditional electoral culture, with its emphasis on crowd mobilization, his candidacy representation will only be available online via live streaming to allow his supporters to “share this valuable moment simultaneously.”
Vowing to persevere until he wins the Taipei mayoral seat, Ting said he hoped next year’s local elections would be a competition about experiences, policies and ideas.
With a doctorate in international politics, Ting has tried in vain to secure the KMT’s nomination for the Taipei mayoral seat four times in the past, losing to former Taipei mayor Huang Ta-chou (黃大洲) in 1994, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in 1998, former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) in 2006 and KMT Central Committee member Sean Lien (連勝文) in 2014.
Despite his unwavering determination, Ting’s road to win the KMT’s nomination might still be bumpy.
There have been reports that the party is eyeing KMT Legislator Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安), the 38-year-old grandson of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), as its Taipei mayoral candidate, due to his relatively young age, good looks and prominent family background.
Asked about Ting’s decision, KMT spokesman Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said the party respects any individual member’s decision to announce their candidacy, but it would not necessarily hold primaries for the mayoral seats of the six special municipalities.
“Being able to win the elections is our ultimate goal and our nomination of candidates will revolve around that goal,” Hung said, adding that the nomination process for the Taipei mayoral post is still ongoing and the party would continue to solicit opinions from different sectors of society.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS