The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday nominated New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) as its candidate for next year’s presidential election.
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co founder Terry Gou (郭台銘), who was the other main contender for the KMT nomination, said he would support Hou’s campaign.
KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) announced Hou’s nomination at a meeting of the KMT’s Central Standing Committee, which in March tasked Chu with choosing a candidate with the best chance to defeating the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Photo: Ritchie B. Tongo, EPA-EFE
After considering “scientific data and the opinions of local government heads and lawmakers... I solemnly declare that our party has drafted Hou You-yi to run in the Republic of China’s [ROC] 2024 presidential election,” Chu said.
Hou, 65, had been coy about running for president, presumably because he did not want to seem eager to pursue the presidency so soon after being re-elected mayor in November last year.
However, he recently expressed his opinions on Taiwan’s relations with China, purportedly to establish his credentials on major issues before accepting the KMT’s nomination.
Photo: CNA
Last month, Hou said the ROC and Taiwan were like “cup and water,” urging Taiwanese to reach a consensus on that “inseparable” relationship and calling on the international community to recognize the ROC’s existence.
Gou, on the other hand, had advocated accepting the so-called “1992 consensus” to resume dialogue with Beijing and maintain cross-strait peace.
One hour before the committee met yesterday, Gou voiced his support for Hou in a Facebook post, congratulating the mayor on his nomination.
“Mayor Hou has the most solid public support, so it is only natural for him to assume greater responsibility. He is also the best candidate within the KMT,” Gou wrote.
“I will keep my promise and do everything I can to support Mayor Hou to win the 2024 election and get rid of the incompetent government,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) officially nominated party founder and Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) as its presidential candidate, setting up a three-way race for the presidency, after the DPP last month nominated Vice President William Lai (賴清德) as its candidate.
Ko was the only TPP member seeking the party’s nomination and his candidacy had been a foregone conclusion for months. His registration information was reviewed by the TPP Central Committee, which approved it at a meeting.
Ko is expected to present his platform, centered on “harmony, reconciliation and peace,” in New Taipei City on Saturday.
Earlier this month, when asked by reporters who his running mate would be, Ko said the TPP welcomed anyone who fit the bill to sign on. He added that Vivian Huang (黃珊珊), one of his deputy mayors during his second mayoral term, would be a “fine candidate.”
There had been speculation that Ko might seek a partnership with Gou, but Ko during a radio interview with former New Power Party legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) on Tuesday said Gou was apparently not interested in partnering with him.
Polls have shown Ko to have a support rating of 20 to 25 percent.
As the TPP’s main support base is made up of pan-blue and pan-green camp voters, Ko’s entry into the race has increased the unpredictability of the outcome.
The “1992 consensus,” a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) in 2006 admitted making up in 2000, refers to a tacit understanding between the KMT and the Chinese government that both sides of the Taiwan Strait acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to start construction of its 1.4-nanometer chip manufacturing facilities at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) as early as October, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday, citing the park administration. TSMC acquired land for the second phase of the park’s expansion in Taichung in June. Large cement, construction and facility engineering companies in central Taiwan have reportedly been receiving bids for TSMC-related projects, the report said. Supply-chain firms estimated that the business opportunities for engineering, equipment and materials supply, and back-end packaging and testing could reach as high as
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant
Democratic nations should refrain from attending China’s upcoming large-scale military parade, which Beijing could use to sow discord among democracies, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) said. China is scheduled to stage the parade on Wednesday next week to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. The event is expected to mobilize tens of thousands of participants and prominently showcase China’s military hardware. Speaking at a symposium in Taichung on Thursday, Shen said that Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) recently met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to New Delhi.