Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidates for legislative by-elections in Greater Tainan and Greater Kaohsiung both defeated their Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) counterparts yesterday, increasing the party’s number of seats in the Legislative Yuan to 33, compared to the KMT’s 73 seats.
According to a statement from the Kaohsiung City Election Commission, vote counting for the legislative by-election was completed at 5:25pm, with a voter turnout of 33.97 percent.”
“The [KMT] candidate Hsu --Ching-huang [徐慶煌] has garnered 23,409 votes, while the [DPP] candidate Lin Tai-hua [林岱樺] has received 53,833 votes,” the statement said. “The official result will be released by March 11, after a review by the commission.”
Meanwhile, information from the Tainan City Election Commission showed that the DPP candidate for the city’s Fourth Electoral District, Hsu Tain-tsair (許添財), garnered 49,002 votes compared with his KMT rival Chen Shu-huei’s (陳淑慧) 30,504 votes.
The electoral results yesterday marked another setback for the KMT after it lost legislative by-elections in Yunlin in 2009, and in Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Chiayi last year. In the five municipality elections last year, the KMT took three of five cities, but received fewer overall votes than the DPP.
DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told a post-election press conference at the party’s headquarters in Taipei: “wining the by-elections gives us more confidence in our ability to face future challenges.”
“After its defeat in the 2008 presidential election, the DPP has humbly reflected on its failings and the party has now stood up again,” she added, taking a bow to thank voters for their support.
The KMT’s losses of yesterday’s by-elections and previous elections sent a message from the people to the KMT government, “which is that the people want change,” Tsai said.
“The DPP’s goal in the next round is to regain power and win a majority in the legislature,” she said.
At a separate setting, KMT -Secretary-General Liao Liou -yi (廖了以) apologized to supporters for the party’s defeat in the two by-elections and said the KMT would work harder to expand its support base in Greater Tainan and Kao-hsiung areas that have long been pan-green strongholds.
“I want to express my -deepest apologies to supporters as the election result failed to meet their expectations.
Although the two districts were challenging areas for the KMT, there should be no excuses for our defeat,” Liao said in a post-election press conference held at the KMT headquarters.
He described the two by--elections as “tough battles with high thresholds” for the KMT, defending both the party and the candidates’ efforts throughout the election campaign.
“There are significant elections waiting for us and I urge our supporters not to be discouraged by the result this time around. We will work harder to consolidate our support base in the South and seek to work more closely with local factions,” he added.
While acknowledging its defeat in the by-elections, the KMT blamed the disappointing number of votes cast for its candidates on the low turnout.
“The turnout was less than 30 percent, and many supporters did not leave home to cast their vote. We put in a lot of effort to encourage voters to turn out, but clearly we need to work harder,” Liao said.
He declined to comment on the DPP’s interpretation of the by-elections as a dry run for the presidential election next year, and said President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who also doubles as the KMT chairman, has instructed the party to work harder at developing support in southern Taiwan.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS