Following a recent overhaul of rules governing how it chooses its legislators-at-large, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday opened registration for what will likely be a fiercely competitive primary election on May 23.
The new rules seek to eradicate the influence of political families and election cheating in the nomination of legislators-at-large, who are allocated according to the percentage of votes each party receives in legislative elections.
The party previously had three categories of legislators-at-large: experts, politicians and minorities. Following the passage of the new rules, suggested by President Chen Shui-bian (
Those in the politician category will be decided by a vote of party members and a public opinion poll, each with a 50-percent weighting, while the expert group will be nominated entirely by a seven- to nine-person nomination committee, which will be appointed by the party chairman and approved by the Central Executive Committee.
The poll will stop contestants from relying on the support of party members, who may be easier to influence than the public.
DPP Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (
"The new regulations are indeed much fairer and eliminate election cheating, but they also make it more difficult to win in the primary," Gao said.
The party has decided to nominate 92 people to run for election in local constituencies and estimates that at least 78 of them will be elected. If its forecast is correct, the party will also win 19 legislator-at-large seats.
Another important change to the rules is that candidates must allow the party to examine his financial situation, criminal record and disciplinary records from the civil service.
Those who wish to run for legislator-at-large have to pay NT$300,000 for registration and NT$350,000 for the opinion poll.
Those running for a constituency seat must pay a NT$300,000 registration fee and NT$200,000 for an opinion poll.
Registration closes tomorrow.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
RSS