A group of KMT and PFP legislators yesterday threatened to support their favored candidate to run for Kaohsiung mayor, unless the leaders of the two parties decide on a joint candidate by July 1.
The legislators, who included the KMT's Huang Chao-shun (
Chiang said there is a consensus among local supporters of both parties that they should unite and field one candidate in order to beat DPP incumbent Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷).
Compared with the DPP's quick decision to nominate Executive Yuan Secretary-General Lee Ying-yuan (
According to Huang, any of the four "pan-blue" hopefuls has the potential to beat Hsieh, but he said only one should join the race under the "pan-blue" banner.
With the four contestants each owning a group of supporters, conflicts will be inevitable and will hamper their cooperation if uncertainty continues, Huang warned.
Lin, meanwhile pointed out that Hsieh had spent two years preparing for his campaign before he officially joined the Kaohisung mayoral race in 1998.
With election day just six months away, the KMT and PFP are obviously late, Lin said.
In addition to PFP Vice Chairman Chang Chao-hsiung (
Pan Chia-sen (
After KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) returns from his US visit on Saturday, he will arrange a meeting with PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) as soon as possible to decide on a candidate, Pan said.
Also yesterday, former DPP Chairman Shih Ming-te (
Shih said that he would not quit halfway through the campaign, saying he will definitely "fight it out."
Johanne Liou (劉喬安), a Taiwanese woman who shot to unwanted fame during the Sunflower movement protests in 2014, was arrested in Boston last month amid US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said yesterday. The arrest of Liou was first made public on the official Web site of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Tuesday. ICE said Liou was apprehended for overstaying her visa. The Boston Field Office’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) had arrested Liou, a “fugitive, criminal alien wanted for embezzlement, fraud and drug crimes in Taiwan,” ICE said. Liou was taken into custody
The US-Japan joint statement released on Friday not mentioning the “one China” policy might be a sign that US President Donald Trump intends to decouple US-China relations from Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said. Following Trump’s meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday, the US and Japan issued a joint statement where they reaffirmed the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Trump has not personally brought up the “one China” policy in more than a year, National Taiwan University Department of Political Science Associate Professor Chen Shih-min (陳世民)
‘NEVER!’ Taiwan FactCheck Center said it had only received donations from the Open Society Foundations, which supports nonprofits that promote democratic values Taiwan FactCheck Center (TFC) has never received any donation from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a cofounder of the organization wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday. The Taipei-based organization was established in 2018 by Taiwan Media Watch Foundation and the Association of Quality Journalism to monitor and verify news and information accuracy. It was officially registered as a foundation in 2021. National Chung Cheng University communications professor Lo Shih-hung (羅世宏), a cofounder and chairman of TFC, was responding to online rumors that the TFC receives funding from the US government’s humanitarian assistance agency via the Open Society Foundations (OSF),
ANNUAL LIGHT SHOW: The lanterns are exhibited near Taoyuan’s high-speed rail station and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the airport MRT line More than 400 lanterns are to be on display at the annual Taiwan Lantern Festival, which officially starts in Taoyuan today. The city is hosting the festival for the second time — the first time was in 2016. The Tourism Administration held a rehearsal of the festival last night. Chunghwa Telecom donated the main lantern of the festival to the Taoyuan City Government. The lanterns are exhibited in two main areas: near the high-speed rail (HSR) station in Taoyuan, which is at the A18 station of the Taoyuan Airport MRT, and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the MRT