Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) mayors yesterday expressed their surprise about former premier William Lai’s (賴清德) announcement yesterday that he would seek the party’s nomination for next year’s presidential election.
Until Lai’s announcement, the only known contender for the DPP’s candidacy was President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who has said that she would seek re-election.
Tainan Mayor Huang Wei-che (黃偉哲), Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) and Hsinchu Mayor Lin Chih-chien (林智堅) yesterday all said that they had not expected Lai to launch a bid.
Photo: Lee Jung-ping, Taipei Times
Cheng said he was surprised and worried at the same time, as the presidential election would pose a difficult challenge for the DPP and it could only win by standing united.
A two-way primary could sow division among party members, Cheng said, adding that he hoped Lai would follow the party’s nomination mechanism and be open to a discussion.
Lin also stressed the importance of party unity.
DPP Secretary-General Luo Wei-jia (羅文嘉) said that all DPP members are allowed to run in elections.
However, all members should remember that they cannot afford to be divided, for the best interests of the nation and the party, Luo said.
Presidential Office Secretary-General Chen Chu (陳菊) said on Facebook that she hoped everyone could sit down for a conversation and find the best course for Taiwan together.
DPP Legislators Liu Chao-hao (劉櫂豪) and Mark Ho (何志偉) said that Lai’s announcement would not divide the party.
The DPP has a well-developed mechanism for presidential nominations that has been in place for years, Liu and Ho said.
The party would use its wisdom to find the best way to move forward, they said, adding that a nomination according to the existing mechanism would not create division within the party.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said that he was “not surprised at all” that Lai had announced a run.
“After he resigned from his post as premier, I thought he was sure to make some move,” Wu said. “What I did not expect was that he would move so fast.”
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
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,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift