President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday assured fellow Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) members that she would win next year’s presidential election and that she has a mission to safeguard Taiwan’s freedom and democracy as the party officially nominated her as its presidential candidate.
Tsai explained her two main goals, saying: “We shall win the presidency and more than half of seats in the legislature,” in a speech following her nomination at a meeting of the DPP’s Central Executive Committee (CEC) at the party’s headquarters in Taipei.
In the party’s primary, Tsai defeated her sole challenger, former premier William Lai (賴清德), with an average support rating of 35.67 percent in five public opinion polls, which gave equal weighting to landline and mobile phone interviews, compared with 27.48 percent for Lai.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
“We have finished the primary process, but we will face greater challenges and heavier responsibilities in the next phase. Therefore, our party must rally together to accomplish our mission,” she said.
The DPP must become a unifying force to consolidate party machinery and the campaign team for the election to help people identify with the party’s vision for Taiwan and obtain the highest level of support from society, Tsai said.
“After winning the election, we shall safeguard Taiwan’s freedom and democracy, and we must defend the values and accomplishments in our government’s reform policies,” she said. “More importantly, we must uphold Taiwan’s sovereignty — this is the mission that we must undertake, and be successful in it.”
Support from younger people would be crucial to her re-election, she said, adding that the DPP must respond to the their needs and aspirations.
“The most critical factor is the power of the younger generation. I hope through the campaign efforts and in our future administration, we can garner more support from the ‘youth power’ and that they can build up our nation working together with the DPP,” Tsai said.
“We must thank former premier Lai for accompanying me all the way through to the end of the primary process. On this journey, Lai helped boost the morale of party members, as he gave them the opportunity to explain our government’s values and achievements to all Taiwanese,” she said.
“We must thank Lai for his display of determination and follow-through on democratic principles,” she added.
Tsai individually thanked party officials, lawmakers, CEC members, Central Standing Committee members and others for their support.
“There were some frictions during the primary ... but it is all in the past, and now is the time to rally together. We have to fully cooperate and spur on each other to take on the upcoming election battle. We must garner greater support from society, so that Taiwan can keep making strides forward,” Tsai said.
Tsai also thanked DPP Chairman Cho Yung-tai (卓榮泰) for his guidance of the party’s central leadership, through which they conducted the primary process with diligence and overcame challenges.
Cho in his speech spoke of a “main strategy” for the election.
“The central pillar for our campaign is based on winning the presidential race, which will bolster our battle to win a majority of the seats at the legislature, which is our main strategy,” he said.
“All the while we will work closely with all sectors of society for a ‘grand dialogue.’ These are the twin arrows of our party with which to gain the public’s trust,” Cho said.
The DPP’s central and local leadership, along with Tsai’s campaign team and the legislative candidates with their campaign teams, would form a “golden triangle” for the elections to ensure victory for the continued governance of the nation by Taiwanese, he said.
Taiwan might be China’s next target after it has “walled off” Hong Kong from the rest of the world with its new national security legislation, Academia Sinica Institute of Sociology fellow Wu Jieh-min (吳介民) said on Thursday. At a seminar organized by the Economic Democracy Union, the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, the Hong Kong Outlanders and the Judicial Reform Foundation, Wu said that the legislation is simultaneously a fig leaf concealing Beijing’s autocratic rule in Hong Kong and a figurative “Berlin Wall,” denying democratic countries access to Hong Kong. Wu said it is evident that Taiwan would be China’s next target. The
YOUNGEST PATIENT: Cases of botulism have been only sporadically reported over the past few years, with two in 2015, six in 2016 and none in the past three years The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the nation’s first case of infant botulism this year, a four-month-old boy in northern Taiwan, as well as five new cases of Japanese encephalitis confirmed last week. The boy was introduced to homemade solid food in the middle of last month, but began to experience constipation and loss of appetite on June 23, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) said, adding that he was taken to the hospital when he developed a fever and shortness of breath on June 25. In the hospital, the boy also experienced a rapid heartbeat, limb
The National Taiwan Museum’s Railway Department Park in Taipei is to open to the public today. The park in Datong District (大同) near the North Gate (北門, Beimen) is one of the museum’s four branches. During the Japanese colonial era, the site housed the railway department of the Office of the Governor-General of Taiwan’s Bureau of Transportation. After World War II, it served as the headquarters for the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) for several decades. In 2007, it was listed as a national monument under the Cultural Heritage Preservation Act (文化資產保存法). At an opening ceremony yesterday, Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung
CHALLENGER DEEP: Lin Ying-Tsong was invited by Caladan Oceanic founder Victor Vescovo to join him on a 10-hour long trip in the company’s submersible Taiwanese-American Lin Ying-Tsong (林穎聰) last month became the first person from Asia and the 12th in human history to dive into the deepest part on Earth, the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench. Lin, 45, an expert in deep sea acoustics with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts, joined US adventurer and Caladan Oceanic founder Victor Vescovo, 54, on June 22 in a descent to the central pool of the Challenger Deep, the deepest point of the trench, which lies at a depth of more than 10,900m. The pair made the descent in a submersible named Limiting Factor, a US$37
RSS