Aides of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co founder Terry Gou (郭台銘), Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) yesterday made a joint visit to the Central Election Commission (CEC) in Taipei to ask about registering as an independent candidate for next year’s presidential election.
They included Evelyn Tsai (蔡沁瑜), deputy chief executive of Gou’s Yonglin Foundation, Taipei City Government adviser Tsai Pi-ju (蔡壁如) and Lynette Lin (林思慧), Wang’s secretary.
They wanted to know how to register as a presidential candidate and whether the commission would be open on Friday, which is a national holiday for the Mid-Autumn Festival, in case they need to register that day, Evelyn Tsai said.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Asked if her trip meant Gou would launch a signature drive to run as an independent candidate, she said that she wanted to have everything prepared in case Gou makes a decision, but it was up to him to make the decision.
“The three camps will have a good talk about this,” she said.
The commission said it would accept registration for prospective presidential candidates from Friday to Tuesday next week, and would be open on Friday, she said.
If their application is approved, a prospective independent candidate would be able to launch a signature drive on Thursday next week, she said.
Prospective candidates must collect 280,384 valid signatures in support of their bid by Nov. 2 to be considered and the petition papers must be submitted in print, as the commission does not accept petitions collected in electronic form via apps, she said.
Since the commission requires prospective presidential candidates to list their vice presidential candidate on their registration application, “if we are to join the presidential race, we must think about finding a vice president,” Evelyn Tsai said.
Asked if Gou’s running mate could be Ko or Wang, she said the camps had not discussed the issue.
However, asked if the plan was for Gou to run for president, Tsai Pi-ju said: “I suppose so.”
Ko would “provide full support to [Gou’s] campaign,” she said.
Asked about Wang’s role, Lin said the answer should come from the former legislative speaker.
She joined the trip to the CEC to “understand the situation,” she said.
Earlier yesterday, Evelyn Tsai told reporters in Xinyi District (信義) that Gou is still mulling whether to run, adding: “I believe Mr Gou is feeling very conflicted.”
Asked to confirm a report on Monday that Gou would announce on Friday that he would quit the KMT, she said: “The said situation will not happen and will not happen on Friday.”
Asked if that meant Gou would leave it to the KMT to decide whether to keep his membership, she said his team has no control over the KMT’s approach to the matter.
In other developments, attorney Lin Hsien-tung (林憲同), a KMT member, yesterday morning sued Gou at the Taipei District Court for breach of trust and fraud, demanding that he quit the KMT and pay NT$10 billion (US$320.2 million) in compensation for the damage he would cause it by running as an independent presidential candidate.
Gou’s office declined to comment on the lawsuit.
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
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
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