Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said that if he plans to run for president, he would announce a bid by early September at the latest, as he would need time to gather the required petitions to run as an independent candidate.
“Sept. 17 is the last day that [the Central Election Commission” accepts petitions” for independent candidates, he said in an interview with an online news outlet.
“We would need to set up petition stations and the process would take more than 10 days, even if we can efficiently collect the petitions. So, frankly, the deadline for such a decision is not Sept. 17, but early September,” he added.
Photo: Liao Chen-hui, Taipei Times
While Ko has not announced his intention to run for president next year, he has been included in various opinion polls, including those used to decide the candidates for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
“Up until now, I have never really wanted to run for president. I am searching for reasons not to enter the race every day,” Ko said.
However, many intellectuals, members of the middle class and people who are not particularly concerned about Taiwanese independence or unification with China are anxious about the choices they have now, he said, apparently referring to President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), who won the KMT presidential primary.
Asked about a remark by Han in an interview published yesterday about Ko not having “a central belief,” Ko said that just as most physicians hold the central belief of helping patients become healthier, politicians should regard as their central belief the long-term interests of the Taiwanese public.
“Is it possible for the ‘1992 consensus’ with its ‘one China, different interpretations’ component to be a central belief? I do not think so,” Ko said.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
RSS