Senior Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) members, business leaders and civic groups have called for Premier William Lai (賴清德) to stay on since he last week reiterated his resolve to step down to take political responsibility for the DPP’s election losses, saying that it would benefit economic development and avoid incongruence in government policies.
Many people have texted him, expressing the hope that Lai would stay in his post, Executive Yuan Secretary-General Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said, adding that he had never seen people so united in an attempt to persuade an official to stay.
Many said it would be a shame if Lai resigned, Cho said.
One senior DPP member even wrote a poem to try to persuade the premier to stay, Cho said, declining to disclose its author.
Former Examination Yuan president Yao Chia-wen (姚嘉文), a senior DPP member, said that while he did not text Cho, he believed that Lai had done a “pretty good job” over more than one year in office and should stay on.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), not Lai, should be held responsible for the DPP’s election rout, as she took the lead on pension reform and the much criticized “one fixed day off, one flexible rest day” labor policy, Yao said.
Now that Tsai has resigned from her post as DPP chairperson, Lai should stay, he said.
Six of the nation’s largest business associations have also requested that Lai remain in his post, Cho said.
Asked whether there is still room for negotiation over the premier’s pledge to resign “when the time is right,” Cho said that the question could only be answered by Lai himself, whose resolve to assume responsibility for the losses remained unchanged.
Calls for Lai to continue have been “quite loud,” Executive Yuan spokeswoman Kolas Yotaka said, citing encounters during official visits with Lai to individuals and civic groups.
Most of the people they visited approved of Lai’s performance, with many asking him to stay, but Lai just responded with a smile, Kolas said.
The business associations agreeing that a premier should stay in their post is rare, she said, adding that the business representatives Lai and she have received have all expressed regret over Lai’s statement.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened 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), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS