Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators yesterday denied a media report that the party is preparing to nominate former premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) to run in the New Taipei City mayoral election.
According to a report by the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the sister newspaper of the Taipei Times), top DPP officials had decided to nominate Su and President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) had been in talks with him last week, asking the former Taipei County commissioner to join the mayoral race.
The DPP informed former premier Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃), another DPP heavyweight who had also been rumored to be nominated for the election, the report said.
However, DPP Legislator Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧), Su Tseng-chang’s daughter, and DPP Legislator Wu Ping-jui (吳秉叡) denied the report, saying that Su Tseng-chang does not intend to run.
Su Chiao-hui confirmed that while calls for her father to run in the election have increased and he feels encouraged by the recognition he has received, he remains committed to Wu’s bid for New Taipei City mayor.
“My father’s intention is clear. He hopes Wu will win the approval of the public,” she said.
Wu also denied the report, saying that he would have been informed of the decision were it true.
Su Tseng-chang had not mentioned any speculation regarding his potential nomination and he had been encouraging Wu to build up his support base and connect with local voters, he said.
Asked if Tsai wanted Wu and DPP Legislator Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政), another contender for the nomination, to drop out of the race, Wu said the DPP would follow its standard nomination process, including preliminary negotiations by competitors followed by a primary.
While New Taipei City could be a major battleground between the DPP and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the Nov. 24 election, the DPP has been slow in picking its nominees for the city as Wu and Luo have support ratings of less than 20 percent in the opinion polls, far behind their potential KMT rivals.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
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