The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) plans to hold rallies in the last weekends of this month and during “golden week” from Jan. 1 to 10 in a bid to win a legislative majority in next month’s elections, party sources said yesterday.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), seeking re-election for the DPP, and DPP vice presidential candidate William Lai (賴清德), are to headline the events, they added.
For the final two weekends of December, the DPP will concentrate on Taipei and New Taipei City, with Vice President Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) and Lai riding in motorcades on Dec. 22, in a push for DPP legislative candidates, said a DPP insider who declined to be identified.
Photo: CNA
For weekend of Dec. 29, the party would focus on DPP legislative candidate Enoch Wu (吳怡農) in Taipei’s third electoral district, with the theme of “Down with Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷) to safeguard Taiwan.”
Wu Sz-huai, who is placed fourth on the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) legislators-at-large list, generated controversy by attending a 2016 event in Beijing celebrating the 150th anniversary of Sun Yat-sen’s (孫逸仙) birth and standing for the Chinese national anthem.
“Most people are in agreement to get rid of Wu Sz-huai, and almost every DPP candidate has joined in Enoch Wu’s campaign call, ‘Down with Wu Sz-huai,’ and the issue has found rapport among the public,” DPP Deputy Secretary-General Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) said yesterday.
“One poll shows that people across age groups, party affiliation, education level and location have concerns about the KMT’s legislators-at-large list. A total of 62.3 percent of voters said they are not happy about KMT’s list, and within KMT supporters, about 50 percent also expressed dissatisfaction for it,” Enoch Wu said.
DPP officials set the final stretch from Jan. 1 to 10 as the “golden week,” when it is to organize rallies across all cities and counties in Taiwan, starting in Hsinchu City (on Jan. 1); Pingtung County (Jan. 2); New Taipei City (Jan. 3); Yunlin County, Changhua County and Taichung (Jan. 4); Taoyuan, Tainan and New Taipei City’s Sinjhuang District (新莊, Jan. 5); and Changhua, Yunlin, Yilan, Nantou and Hsinchu counties, as well as Taoyuan and Keelung (from Jan. 6 to 9).
On Jan. 10, the day before the elections, the party is to hold rallies in Kaohsiung and Taipei, with some adjustments likely depending on planning, officials said.
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