New Power Party (NPP) Executive Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) yesterday said that he would not run for chairman again next month and has not yet decided whether to run again in next year’s legislative elections.
“After much thought and consideration, I have decided not to run for a seat on the party’s decisionmaking committee and step aside from duties,” Huang told a news conference at the party’s caucus office in Taipei.
He said he had not applied to join the committee, which stopped accepting applications for registration at 12am yesterday.
Not being on the committee would disqualify Huang from taking part in the chairperson election on Friday next week.
According to the NPP’s charter, the chairperson must be on the decisionmaking committee and is elected by its 15 members.
Huang has been on the committee for two terms and chosen as chairman twice since he joined the party in 2015.
“Since the party has developed a steady foundation, this is an appropriate time for me to set aside my party duties and switch my focus to promoting reforms important to Taiwan’s future,” Huang wrote on Facebook earlier in the day.
Although there is still room for improvement, the NPP has successfully differentiated itself from the pan-green and pan-blue camps, and has built a solid political base, he said.
The party won five legislative seats in 2016, and 16 seats in the city and county council elections in last year, he said.
Opinion polls conducted earlier this month found that 12 to 17 percent of the public supports the NPP, he added.
Huang told the news conference that he hopes to see more talented members participate in running the party so that the public could come to know them better.
While it is common for minor parties to have the same chairman for many years, he has always believed that “the NPP will not and should not do that,” he said.
“The NPP is a democratic party, not a one-man party,” he added.
He would continue to work as a legislator, but would not take up the party’s caucus convener post, he said.
“If I do continue my career in politics, I would have to decide where to place myself to better contribute to issues that I care about and how I can make Taiwan a nation where everyone has an equal chance to realize their dream,” he said.
Asked by reporters if his decision not to contest the chairmanship was to take responsibility for the NPP’s loss in New Taipei City last year, or if he was considering running for president next year, Huang said no.
The decisionmaking committee election is to be held online from Monday to Wednesday next week. Sixty-four people have registered to compete for the 15 seats.
They include NPP legislators Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明), Freddy Lim (林昶佐), Hung Tzu-yung (洪慈庸) and Kawlo Iyun Pacidal, NPP Secretary-General Chen Hui-min (陳惠敏) and Taipei City Councilor Lin Liang-chun (林亮君).
While many expect Lim to be elected chairman, he told reporters yesterday that he has no plan to compete for the position.
“There are many talented young members of the party and it would be good to have a younger chairman,” he said.
Additional reporting by CNA
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods