Independent Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐) has applied to join the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) at the suggestion of its presidential candidate, Vice President William Lai (賴清德).
Lim said he is ready to campaign for the DPP for January’s elections.
In a Facebook post on Monday evening, he wrote that remaining nonpartisan helped him in his international work, but as those duties concluded last month, he was ready to take on another role.
Photo: CNA
“At this final stage, I will stand with my partners,” Lim said, adding that he would help, “as a member of the DPP,” with the party’s presidential campaign and its efforts to secure more than half of the legislative seats, the musician-turned-politician said.
“Go all out and work hard together,” he said.
The 47-year-old Lim, the lead vocalist of heavy metal band Chthonic and a human rights activist, helped establish the New Power Party in 2015 and was elected as a legislator in January 2016.
Following differences with other members regarding the NPP’s direction, Lim withdrew from the party on Aug. 1, 2019.
In January 2020, he was re-elected as an independent.
Last year, efforts by Lim’s opponents to recall him for what they described as “poor performance” failed. In March, he announced that he would not run in next year’s legislative race, due to a family illness.
The DPP currently holds 63 seats in the 113-seat legislature, while the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has 37, plus one ally legislator.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
RSS