While the New Taipei City mayoral seat will be a key indicator of the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) performance in the local elections at the end of this year, there is no possibility of Premier William Lai (賴清德) running in the elections, DPP Legislator Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康) said yesterday.
With the DPP expected to secure re-election in Kaohsiung, Taichung, Tainan and Taoyuan, and working to prevent the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) from seizing Taipei, New Taipei City would be a major battleground between the two parties in the Nov. 24 election, Tuan said during a radio interview.
While the DPP might lose some cities to the KMT, a possible win in New Taipei City would be interpreted as a landslide victory for the DPP if the KMT fails to secure any of the six special municipalities, Tuan said.
Photo: Screen grab from Facebook
“New Taipei City is of important strategic value. The New Taipei City mayoral seat will be the key focus and indicator of the mayoral elections,” he said.
The KMT, which holds New Taipei City, could easily win the election if the DPP nominates an unpopular candidate, so the DPP will field the most worthy candidate in the city, Tuan said.
DPP legislators Wu Ping-jui (吳秉叡) and Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政), as well as Taipei Deputy Mayor Chen Chin-jun (陳景峻), who have announced their candidacy for the DPP nomination for New Taipei City, each has a support rating of less than 20 percent in opinion polls, lagging potential KMT rivals.
Asked if former premiers Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) or Yu Shyi-kun, each of whom has a more than 40 percent support rating, would be named for the mayoral election, Tuan said he did not know if the DPP would nominate them.
However, “it is out of the question” that Lai would run for New Taipei City mayor, Tuan added.
Had Lai accepted the positions of Presidential Office secretary-general or vice premier, chances were that he would run for mayor, but his assuming the premiership ruled out the possibility of Lai running for a mayoral seat, Tuan said.
Meanwhile, DPP Legislator Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧), daughter of Su Tseng-chang, said that her father would not run for New Taipei City mayor, denying media reports that the DPP was ready to nominate him.
Her father would continue to support Wu’s bid, and Wu remains the leading DPP candidate for the New Taipei City race, she said
Su Tseng-chang was county commissioner for then-Taipei County from 1997 to 2004. The county became New Taipei City in 2010.
NATIONAL SECURITY: Authorities are working to confirm the identities of the military personnel involved and investigating possible illegal conduct and regulatory violations Authorities are probing possible national security implications after Kinmen police and immigration officers on Sunday found a Chinese woman allegedly posing as a tourist while engaging in prostitution involving more than 10 military personnel. The woman, surnamed Chen (陳), has since been deported, authorities said, adding that investigators are still working to confirm the identities of those implicated, as the records only listed code names and aliases. The case stemmed from a report received by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday last week from the Jinhu Precinct of the Kinmen County Police Bureau. On Sunday, police, along with the National Immigration
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
MULTIPRONGED APPROACH: China has sought to pressure Palau across a number of fronts, but the island nation has staunchly resisted overtures to ditch Taiwan Palau has been firm in backing Taiwan despite Chinese pressure that uses tourism economics, cyberattacks and criminal infiltration as tools to threaten the Pacific ally into renouncing its recognition of Taiwan as a sovereign state. The Presidential Office yesterday announced that Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) would visit Palau from Saturday to Wednesday next week at the invitation of Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr. Whipps in April said in an interview that China had outspokenly asked Palau to “denounce Taiwan.” “And we have said: ‘We have no enemies, but nobody tells us who our friends are,’” he said. Whipps has told reporters multiple times
RSS