Taiwan United Nations Alliance president Michael Tsai (蔡明憲) yesterday said he has renounced his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) membership to protest the party’s decision to delay its presidential primary.
Tsai made the remarks in a written statement two days after the DPP Central Executive Committee pushed the date back to May 22.
The party’s initial schedule was for a five-member team to mediate between primary participants President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and former premier William Lai (賴清德) by yesterday, and that if mediation had failed, Tsai Ing-wen and Lai would have presented their views to the public today and tomorrow. Surveys would have been conducted over the following three days before the party headquarters was to announce its candidate on April 24.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
The rescheduling places the primary after the party is to nominate its legislative candidates, which some say would stack the deck in Tsai Ing-wen’s favor.
Michael Tsai, a former minister of national defense, urged the DPP leadership to respect the institution of the primary.
“The belief in fair, rules-based competition had always been part of the DPP’s core values,” he said.
However, the administration’s ineffectual implementation of transitional justice and judicial reform has resulted in “alienation and anxiety” among Taiwanese, to which the party leadership has become “indifferent,” he said.
Since Tsai Ing-wen led the DPP’s return to office in 2016, she has refused to respond to his advice regarding the promotion of a “Taiwanese nationalism,” regaining membership at the UN or bolstering the national defenses by employing partial conscription, Michael Tsai said.
“The pursuit of short-term political interests by its internal factions has consumed the party,” he said. “As a party member, I no longer have any power to advise it and therefore must register my deep pain and sorrow by leaving.”
“I am proud to have been a DPP member and to have fought the good fight for Taiwanese, but now I have to depart from the party that I grew up with,” Michael Tsai said. “I will be contributing what little power I have to my fatherland Taiwan from another place.”
“The DPP has my blessings and I sincerely hope it ... recovers its strength,” he said.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
NUMBERS IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
Temperatures are forecast to drop steadily as a continental cold air mass moves across Taiwan, with some areas also likely to see heavy rainfall, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. From today through early tomorrow, a cold air mass would keep temperatures low across central and northern Taiwan, and the eastern half of Taiwan proper, with isolated brief showers forecast along Keelung’s north coast, Taipei and New Taipei City’s mountainous areas and eastern Taiwan, it said. Lows of 11°C to 15°C are forecast in central and northern Taiwan, Yilan County, and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, and 14°C to 17°C
STEERING FAILURE: The first boat of its class is experiencing teething issues as it readies for acceptance by the navy, according to a recent story about rudder failure The Hai Kun (海鯤), the nation’s first locally built submarine, allegedly suffered a total failure of stern hydraulic systems during the second round of sea acceptance trials on June 26, and sailors were forced to manually operate the X-rudder to turn the submarine and return to port, news Web site Mirror Daily reported yesterday. The report said that tugboats following the Hai Kun assisted the submarine in avoiding collisions with other ships due to the X-rudder malfunctioning. At the time of the report, the submarine had completed its trials and was scheduled to begin diving and surfacing tests in shallow areas. The X-rudder,
RSS