President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday announced that she had picked former premier William Lai (賴清德) as her running mate “to form the strongest combination” for the Jan. 11 elections.
She made the announcement at the inauguration of her national campaign headquarters in Taipei, while thanking Vice President Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) for his service.
“I want to give this important job to Lai, as 2020 will be a crucial year for Taiwan. So I asked Lai to run on the ticket with me, and for him lead the campaigns for legislative seats, so the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] can win a majority,” she said.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
“This will pave the way for better governance and rally all the forces of reform to work together,” she added.
“Right at the beginning of the [re-election] campaign, my only conviction was to win the election to safeguard Taiwan, as is the president’s duty,” she said. “Competition within our party has made us stronger. Now we unite in partnership to forge the strongest combination.”
Lai has had an accomplished political career, and he has a strong belief in and commitment to the future of Taiwan, she added.
“The Chinese Nationalist Party’s [KMT] presidential candidate has used every opportunity to vilify us, using derogatory language to attack us,” Tsai said.
“I must say, the KMT has absolutely no understanding of democracy and its values, and what it means to come together in unity. Progress comes from competition. No matter how intense the competition, in the end our party can remain unified,” she said.
Thanking Chen, Tsai said that he has “served as my deputy with distinction. He is always filled with warmth and patience, and took on troublesome tasks to fix them so we could overcome many difficulties.”
In his speech, Lai said he had accepted Tsai’s offer because he feels she is sincere and the ticket would meet the public’s expectations.
“In this darkest hour, we are joining together to safeguard Taiwan, to maintain our beacon of democracy as a leading light for Hong Kong and to illuminate the world,” he said.
“In the face of a China, which is closing in at every stage and warning signs from Hong Kong, what can the Democratic Progressive Party in next year’s critical election battle give the people of Taiwan? Isn’t our most important mission to unite and defend Taiwan?” he said.
“As long as Taiwan wins, there will be no losers, but if Taiwan loses, then there will be no winners,” he added.
“My ideals and my values remain unchanged,” Lai said as he talked about challenging Tsai in the DPP primary.
“We are comrades within our party. Tsai is not my enemy and she is not my adversary. Together we have fought many battles and experienced hardships, and we will face many future challenges. However, now Taiwan needs us, and I will offer my heart and mind to fight this election,” he said.
The KMT said yesterday’s announcement was no surprise.
Lai has proclaimed himself a “pragmatic Taiwanese independence activist,” so Tsai’s decision to pick him suggests that “under Tsai’s ineffectual governance, she could only try to entice pro-Taiwan independence groups and seek support from the extremist edge of Taiwan’s political spectrum,” the party said in a statement.
Additional reporting by Lin Liang-sheng
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
NO CONFIDENCE MOTION? The premier said that being toppled by the legislature for defending the Constitution would be a democratic badge of honor for him Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday announced that the Cabinet would not countersign the amendments to the local revenue-sharing law passed by the Legislative Yuan last month. Cho said the decision not to countersign the amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) was made in accordance with the Constitution. “The decision aims to safeguard our Constitution,” he said. The Constitution stipulates the president shall, in accordance with law, promulgate laws and issue mandates with the countersignature of the head of the Executive Yuan, or with the countersignatures of both the head of the Executive Yuan and ministers or
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
RSS