Eight more James Soong (
Those on the expulsion list included former Legislative Yuan Speaker Liu Sung-fan (
Former deputy director of the Government Information Office Yen Jung-chang (顏榮昌) was also on the list, as he is now a spokesman for the independent candidate.
The others are all leading strategists or supporters of Soong, who was stripped of party membership in November after insisting on running without the KMT's nomination.
"Committee members unanimously agreed to revoke their memberships," said Chien Wei-chang (
In response, Liu said the Soong camp is very likely to win the election.
Former justice minister Liao Cheng-hao (
A total of 36 people have been expelled from the KMT so far for openly supporting the popular former Taiwan governor.
Soong has taken the lead in some recent public opinion polls -- showing signs of recovering from a financial scandal which had dragged his support rating to below 30 percent and threatened to derail his campaign.
In a survey conducted by a local paper on Friday, 23 percent of the 1,359 people polled said they would vote for Soong and his running mate, cardiologist Chang Chao-hsiung (
Rivals Chen Shui-bian (
The KMT's presidential candidate, Vice President Lien Chan (連戰), and his running mate Premier Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) received only a 19 percent support rating.
However, 36 percent of respondents said they were still undecided, according to the poll.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
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