Former premier William Lai (賴清德) yesterday said he had presented a new proposal for dealing with public surveys for the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential primary, because it is a “winning strategy” that could forge party unity and pave the way to victory in next year’s presidential election.
Lai on Wednesday proposed a direct comparison of the results of surveys of him and President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) against the leading candidate from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), namely Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜).
If Tsai wins in a public survey against Han or he loses in a public poll against Han, he would support Tsai as the DPP presidential candidate, Lai said.
Photo: Wang Chieh, Taipei Times
However, if the survey shows that he could defeat Han and Han could win over Tsai, then he would ask Tsai to support him for the party nomination, Lai said.
“This way, we can maintain the party’s candidate selection mechanism and preserve its credibility in the public’s eyes,” he said.
It would also “ensure unity for our party, for it to go on to win next year’s election and safeguard Taiwan’s democracy,” Lai said.
The DPP’s primary process and mechanism have worked for many years, and “if we make changes and break the rules now, then it would be difficult to maintain the trust and support of society at large,” he added.
On the sidelines of a public event in Taipei later yesterday, Lai addressed public criticism and DPP members’ accusation that he was trying to scuttle the primary process and wrecking party unity.
“The setbacks I have encountered are opportunities for learning, which have strengthened my conviction to take on greater responsibility in the future. I hope people can see my determination,” he said.
“The party’s primary process must be maintained to have public credibility,” he said. “My winning strategy is very simple, if President Tsai could hold on and win, then I would support her. If I lack the ability to take up this responsibility, then I would also support President Tsai.”
“My proposal has been criticized by some quarters, but I am trying to resolve the problems that we have encountered in the primary process,” he said. “It is my conviction that we should strive for harmony and party unity to win in next year’s election.”
Lai’s office spokesman Lee Tuey-chih (李退之) rebutted some media reports that Lai conducted a “surprise raid” on DPP headquarters on Wednesday, saying Lai had a good dialogue with other party officials when he visited the Central Executive Committee meeting, where the new proposal was discussed.
“It was part of the mediation process, where key officials were present, with a dialogue held in good faith. It was Lai’s way of resolving the stalemate, to work together to finalize the primary process. It was for the DPP to nominate the strongest possible candidate, the one who can best safeguard Taiwan and our democracy,” Lee said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater