New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) has triggered speculation over his stance on Saturday’s referendums after writing on social media that voters should exercise their independent judgement.
On the ballot are to be questions related to banning the importation of pork containing traces of the leanness-enhancing feed additive ractopamine, relocating a natural gas terminal project to protect algal reefs off Taoyuan’s Guanyin District (觀音), restarting construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) and holding referendums alongside elections.
Writing on Facebook on Monday evening, Hou, a member of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), called on the public to make up their own minds on the referendums, saying that no one has the right to tell someone else how to vote.
Photo: CNA
“The referendums should be held after the public has calmly debated the issues with the help of experts, reason and science... Instead, they are treated as a straight-ticket vote and voters are being spoon-fed choices,” he wrote.
“The reason for holding a referendum is to make known the people’s will, and for them to weigh the pros and cons of each proposition in their own mind before arriving at a decision,” he said.
The nation cannot afford divisions and internal strife, Hou said.
His unchanging political belief is to “put the people’s welfare above all else, including the party, factions and my personal ambitions,” he wrote.
Hou told a news conference at the Shulin Civil Sports Center yesterday that the post “conveys the core belief that the people should decide after debating the issues with reason, science and logic.”
Asked to comment on Hou’s post, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) told a news conference at the party’s headquarters in Taipei that the KMT “has a duty to courageously state its position regarding the issues.”
Hou has a right to express his opinion to the party’s supporters, but politicians need to exercise the art of speaking carefully in a multi-party democracy, KMT caucus convener Alex Fai (費鴻泰) said.
“Of course, the party hopes that Hou would clearly communicate his stance. New Taipei City voters are an important part of the party’s base and a majority of the public supports the four referendums,” KMT Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) said.
Later yesterday, Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦), of the Democratic Progressive Party, told a news conference at city hall that Hou’s post shows that he opposes the KMT’s position on the referendums.
Numerous county commissioners and mayors have demurred from the KMT’s line of voting yes on all four referendums and Hou is expressing his dissent in a polite way, Cheng said.
The four referendums reflect the political extremism that hijacked the KMT under then-chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), Cheng added.
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
Both sides of the Taiwan Strait share a political foundation based on the “1992 consensus” and opposition to Taiwanese independence, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today said during her meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Both sides of the Strait should plan and build institutionalized and sustainable mechanisms for dialogue and cooperation based on that foundation to make peaceful development across the Strait irreversible, she said. Peace is a shared moral value across the Strait, and both sides should move beyond political confrontation to seek institutionalized solutions to prevent war, she said. Mutually beneficial cross-strait relations are what the
ECONOMIC COERCION: Such actions are often inconsistently applied, sometimes resumed, and sometimes just halted, the Presidential Office spokeswoman said The government backs healthy and orderly cross-strait exchanges, but such arrangements should not be made with political conditions attached and never be used as leverage for political maneuvering or partisan agendas, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks after China earlier in the day announced 10 new “incentive measures” for Taiwan, following a landmark meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in Beijing on Friday. The measures, unveiled by China’s Xinhua news agency, include plans to resume individual travel by residents of Shanghai and China’s Fujian
RSS