Opposition politicians failed to agree on a united approach to the January elections during a chaotic meeting that was broadcast live yesterday, ahead of the 5pm deadline for registration today.
In a last-ditch effort to revive faltering negotiations, Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) invited the other opposition candidates, independent Terry Gou (郭台銘) and New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), to talks at the Grand Hyatt Taipei at 4:30pm.
Gou was the first to arrive in the venue, followed by Hou at 4:46pm, who was accompanied by KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) and former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), also of the KMT.
Photo: Carlos Garcia Rawlins, Reuters
Gou’s campaign said it had originally planned to hold closed talks between the three candidates on the 25th floor of the hotel, but the KMT insisted on live-streaming the discussion with Chu and Ma also present.
Ko and Gou entered late to the room, leaving the KMT members alone at a desk next to a digital clock counting down to the registration deadline at 5pm today.
The combative tone was set early, with spokesmen for Gou and the KMT trading barbs before the final two participants arrived.
Photo: CNA
Gou, who was appointed leader of the talks, said that if the discussions were still only between the KMT and the TPP, he would leave.
At one point, Hou brought out his phone to read text messages from Ko saying that Gou needed a reason to withdraw from the race.
Ko took issue with Hou reading their private messages, saying it is “something that only celebrities and their wingmen would do.”
Photo: Carlos Garcia Rawlins, Reuters
Hou responded that he read it with Ko’s permission, and he could have refused.
There was some discussion of the disagreement in polling analysis that stymied initial coalition talks last week, with Chu suggesting that the two sides discuss collaboration without dwelling on the dispute, as the polls consistently showed that a united opposition in any form would be victorious in January.
However, the participants did not reach an agreement during the 90-minute event and they at one point left for a break after Gou excused himself. He did not come back until the KMT delegation’s departure.
Photo: Reuters
The meeting ended at the 6:30pm deadline with the KMT members leaving after Gou’s spokesman suggested that the party tried to manipulate polls from earlier in the year.
Gou and Ko stayed a few more minutes to speak with reporters, with Gou again expressing discontent at being relegated to a witness rather than participant, but adding that “the sun will rise again tomorrow.”
The KMT held its own news conference after the meeting, saying it would “wait until the last moment” and calling for a return to the original six agreements reached with the TPP on Wednesday last week.
However, according to a schedule posted by the TPP later in the evening, Ko is to go to the Central Election Commission at 11am today to register his candidacy, leaving doubt that an agreement would be reached before then.
The schedule did not mention who would be accompanying Ko to the office.
Additional reporting by Huang Ching-yi
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS