Once candidates nominated by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) begin winning seats, the Legislative Yuan’s culture of negotiating deals under the table would change, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said yesterday.
He made the remark when leaving a ceremony at the Taipei Confucius Temple marking the birth of Confucius and the media asked him about comments he made in an interview with Chinese-language Credere Media (信傳媒) that was published on Friday.
In the interview, Ko said he is looking forward to seeing Taipei City Government adviser Tsai Pi-ju (蔡壁如) battle with Democratic Progressive Party caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) in the Legislative Yuan.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
It would be a battle between “the audacious and the negotiation king,” Ko added.
Tsai is a founding member of the TPP who has worked with Ko for more than two decades, while Ker has been in the Legislative Yuan since 1993 and plays an instrumental role in cross-caucus negotiations.
Yesterday, Ko said that he has a good relationship with Ker and that they both come from Hsinchu.
However, he added: “The Legislative Yuan always gives people the impression that they negotiate under the table, so if they let us audacious people participate, it would certainly bring about the catfish effect,” referring to the motivating effects that strong competition can have on weaker individuals.
Asked whether Tsai would be a nominee on the his party’s legislator-at-large list, Ko said that he still has two months to think about it before making an official nomination.
Ko confirmed that former Hon Hai Precision Industry founder Terry Gou (郭台銘) has shown support for the TPP’s legislative candidates by agreeing to take publicity photographs with them.
The details of how the TPP and Gou would cooperate in next year’s legislative elections are still under discussion, Ko added.
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:
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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