The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) yesterday failed to agree on a joint candidate for president, once again throwing into doubt their ability to unseat the ruling party in January’s election.
The parties were expected to announce an agreed-upon candidate yesterday at 10am, but instead announced that they needed further consultations after a disagreement over how to use polling data to make the selection.
On Wednesday, they reached an agreement to have poll experts selected by the KMT and the TPP assess the results of an aggregate of public polls released from Nov. 7 to Friday, along with internal polls conducted by the two sides to determine which of the two parties’ candidates has the best chance of winning the Jan. 13 election.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
After more than five hours of negotiations through Friday night, the two sides could not reach an agreement over which polls to consider and how large the margin of error should be.
TPP Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) had agreed that if he came out ahead in the polling results, but his lead was within a margin of error, he would count that as a win for New Taipei Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), the KMT’s presidential candidate.
The KMT and the TPP insist their reading of the polls is the correct one, with the KMT’s showing that if Hou was the presidential candidate then the joint team with Ko as running mate would beat Vice President William Lai (賴清德), the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential candidate, which is not what the TPP’s shows.
As of yesterday, the parties were still unable to agree on how to interpret the polling data and whether landline-only polls should be used.
Nevertheless, the two sides have not relinquished hope of collaborating for the election, with Ko and KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) telling separate news conferences that they would continue negotiating ahead of the deadline on Friday next week for candidates to register with the Central Election Committee.
Regarding whether talks had broken down for good, former Taipei mayor Ko, who has previously said that the things he hates the most are “mosquitoes, cockroaches and the KMT,” yesterday said that anything was possible before Friday next week, but he could not be expected to “surrender” to the KMT on the poll issue.
“We hope we can continue to consult with the KMT,” he said.
Chu told a separate news conference that cooperation remained the aim, but did not indicate he would back down on the polls issue.
“We hope to reach consensus as soon as possible,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ko and Hou individually trail in the polls with Lai as the frontrunner.
A fourth candidate, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) founder Terry Gou (郭台銘), has thrown his hat in the ring as well.
The DPP, which many have speculated would tomorrow announce Representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) as Lai’s running mate, said that only China stands to gain from the KMT and TPP aligning.
Authorities have detained three former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TMSC, 台積電) employees on suspicion of compromising classified technology used in making 2-nanometer chips, the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. Prosecutors are holding a former TSMC engineer surnamed Chen (陳) and two recently sacked TSMC engineers, including one person surnamed Wu (吳) in detention with restricted communication, following an investigation launched on July 25, a statement said. The announcement came a day after Nikkei Asia reported on the technology theft in an exclusive story, saying TSMC had fired two workers for contravening data rules on advanced chipmaking technology. Two-nanometer wafers are the most
NEW GEAR: On top of the new Tien Kung IV air defense missiles, the military is expected to place orders for a new combat vehicle next year for delivery in 2028 Mass production of Tien Kung IV (Sky Bow IV) missiles is expected to start next year, with plans to order 122 pods, the Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) latest list of regulated military material showed. The document said that the armed forces would obtain 46 pods of the air defense missiles next year and 76 pods the year after that. The Tien Kung IV is designed to intercept cruise missiles and ballistic missiles to an altitude of 70km, compared with the 60km maximum altitude achieved by the Missile Segment Enhancement variant of PAC-3 systems. A defense source said yesterday that the number of
A bipartisan group of US representatives have introduced a draft US-Taiwan Defense Innovation Partnership bill, aimed at accelerating defense technology collaboration between Taiwan and the US in response to ongoing aggression by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The bill was introduced by US representatives Zach Nunn and Jill Tokuda, with US House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party Chairman John Moolenaar and US Representative Ashley Hinson joining as original cosponsors, a news release issued by Tokuda’s office on Thursday said. The draft bill “directs the US Department of Defense to work directly with Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense through their respective
Tsunami waves were possible in three areas of Kamchatka in Russia’s Far East, the Russian Ministry for Emergency Services said yesterday after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit the nearby Kuril Islands. “The expected wave heights are low, but you must still move away from the shore,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app, after the latest seismic activity in the area. However, the Pacific Tsunami Warning System in Hawaii said there was no tsunami warning after the quake. The Russian tsunami alert was later canceled. Overnight, the Krasheninnikov volcano in Kamchatka erupted for the first time in 600 years, Russia’s RIA
RSS