The official campaign period for the Jan. 26 local elections was launched yesterday by the Taiwan Provincial Election Committee.
The elections will elect local township chiefs and councilors for local counties and cities. There are a total of 2,939 candidates registered for the elections, which include 1,992 candidates running for 879 councilor seats and 852 candidates running for 319 township chief positions.
Since local public officials are considered to be key campaigners for central government elections, the nation's political parties are eyeing this year's polls very closely.
Several politicians who failed in the Dec. 1 legislative elections switched their focus to the local races, tightening the competition.
The ruling DPP nominated a total of 432 candidates for the elections, 166 of which are township chiefs and 266 of which are vying for councilor positions.
Meanwhile, the KMT said it estimates that it will win 175 township chief seats and 400 seats in the city and county councilor elections.
The People First Party (PFP) has nominated 27 candidates to run in the elections for local government heads and 267 candidates to run in the county and city councilor elections.
PFP Spokesman Hsieh Kung-ping (
The newly-formed Taiwan Solidarity Union only nominated two candidates for township chief positions and 39 candidates for the local city and county councilor elections.
Under the Public Officials Election and Recall Law, campaigning must be confined to between 7am and 10pm. Candidates are not allowed to air television or radio ads during these last ten days before the election.
The Ministry of the Interior and the Government Reform Committee have said that the elections for township chiefs and representatives will stop in 2006 and become appointed positions.
Meanwhile, the Central Election Committee yesterday set up a new guideline that non-government officials would replace local commissioners or mayors to serve as chiefs of the committee's 27 local bureaus.
"Since local commissioners and mayors always quit these posts before elections so they can campaign for candidates, we decided that the posts should only be taken by non-government officials," said Tsai Li-cher (
The guideline would be implemented after it passed by the CEC's committee meeting.
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
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