The People First Party (PFP) is confident of winning 10 legislative seats and would work with other parties to pass bills that affect people’s lives, party spokeswoman Belle Yu (于美人) said yesterday.
About 30 percent of moderate voters have been silent about whom they are going to vote for in the presidential election, she said.
“When we were canvassing for votes on the streets, many told us that they are moderate voters who chose to support their candidates without saying anything. This has moved us and inspired us. Whatever happens, we should do much better than last time,” she said, referring to the 2016 elections.
At least three of its legislative candidates could be elected and the party is trying to win enough party votes that seven of its legislator-at-large nominees would be able to take seats, she added.
Asked how the PFP would work with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to introduce and pass bills if the results are what it expects, Yu said that small parties are expected to gain ground this year.
“We have said that we want the legislature to be a more ‘colorful’ place, not just blue [KMT] and green [DPP]. The two major parties have often taken positions on bills simply because they were the opposite of what the other party said, regardless if it whether it was a good bill, which meant that bills that were actually good for the nation and the public often failed to pass,” Yu said.
“Even though we had only three legislators and an independent lawmaker who worked with us in the recent legislative term, we actually got more bills passed than any other party, because we were not judging the bills by their color or using political ideology to determine if we should support a bill,” she said.
“As long as a bill was good for the public or was about something everyone could agree on, the PFP tried everything to get it passed,” she added.
The party has arranged for Hong Hai Precision Industry Co founder Terry Gou (郭台銘) to attend tonight’s pre-election rally in Taipei and it hopes that he would not get stuck in traffic, Yu said.
“We want the rally to demonstrate the power of average voters, whose existence has helped stabilize the nation. In the past 20 years, [PFP] Chairman [James] Soong (宋楚瑜) has heard the voice of the people and knows what they want. It was not that the people did not elect him, but it was that they never gave up on him and kept wanting him to run in elections,” she said.
The party has also invited some top singers to perform at tonight’s rally, Yu said.
“One thing I can guarantee you is that Soong will not be singing at the rally,” she said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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