With only days left to go before the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairmanship election, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
Taking a break from his duties as Taipei mayor, Ma yesterday spent the entire day campaigning for the party's July 16 chairmanship election. After courting the Hakka vote in Miaoli County yesterday morning, Ma headed south to Chiayi County and then to Yunlin County.
While attending a mass rally in Miaoli County yesterday morning, Ma emphasized that he and his competitor, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-YI, TAIPEI TIMES
If made chairman, Ma said yesterday, he will see that the party abandons the practice of vote-buying, adding that only by doing this can the party compete with the Democratic Progressive Party.
Ma also paid a visit to Miaoli County Commissioner Fu Hsueh-peng (
Despite Ma's efforts however, when questioned by reporters at the meeting if he was a Ma supporter, Fu was evasive.
"I have not been a KMT member for a long time now. But in spirit, I give him encouragement and wish him well," Fu said yesterday.
According to the schedule released by his central campaign office, Ma will be spending today campaigning in Pingtung and Kaohsiung counties, before heading back tonight to Taipei for a mass campaign rally at the Songshan Tobacco Factory.
The Wang camp similarly has scheduled a mass rally for tonight, which will be held at the National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall.
Meanwhile, the party prepared itself for tomorrow's elections yesterday, announcing that it had printed a total of 1,049,000 ballots in preparation for tomorrow's chairmanship election. While the party has registered only 1,029,000 party members to vote tomorrow, it has printed an extra 2 percent of the total ballots needed to be ready for any contingencies, the party said yesterday.
In a statement released by KMT Secretary-General Lin Feng-cheng (
According to party rules, the party has the right to discipline or even fire party workers who make serious administrative errors, Lin said in the statement, making reference to the rules which were used as the basis of the disciplinary action the party is to take against the administrators of the party's regional office in Yunlin County.
Controversy between the Ma and Wang camps broke out last week, when it was discovered that administrative lapses by the KMT's Yunlin office had left the voting privileges of over 6,000 party members in the region in question.
Tropical Storm Nari is not a threat to Taiwan, based on its positioning and trajectory, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Nari has strengthened from a tropical depression that was positioned south of Japan, it said. The eye of the storm is about 2,100km east of Taipei, with a north-northeast trajectory moving toward the eastern seaboard of Japan, CWA data showed. Based on its current path, the storm would not affect Taiwan, the agency said.
The Taipei Department of Health’s latest inspection of fresh fruit and vegetables sold in local markets revealed a 25 percent failure rate, with most contraventions involving excessive pesticide residues, while two durians were also found to contain heavy metal cadmium at levels exceeding safety limits. Health Food and Drug Division Director Lin Kuan-chen (林冠蓁) yesterday said the agency routinely conducts inspections of fresh produce sold at traditional markets, supermarkets, hypermarkets, retail outlets and restaurants, testing for pesticide residues and other harmful substances. In its most recent inspection, conducted in May, the department randomly collected 52 samples from various locations, with testing showing
The government should improve children’s outdoor spaces and accelerate carbon reduction programs, as the risk of heat-related injury due to high summer temperatures rises each year, Greenpeace told a news conference yesterday. Greenpeace examined summer temperatures in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Hsinchu City, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung to determine the effects of high temperatures and climate change on children’s outdoor activities, citing data garnered by China Medical University, which defines a wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT) of 29°C or higher as posing the risk of heat-related injury. According to the Central Weather Administration, WBGT, commonly referred to as the heat index, estimates
Taipei and other northern cities are to host air-raid drills from 1:30pm to 2pm tomorrow as part of urban resilience drills held alongside the Han Kuang exercises, Taiwan’s largest annual military exercises. Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung, Taoyuan, Yilan County, Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County are to hold the annual Wanan air defense exercise tomorrow, following similar drills held in central and southern Taiwan yesterday and today respectively. The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) and Maokong Gondola are to run as usual, although stations and passenger parking lots would have an “entry only, no exit” policy once air raid sirens sound, Taipei
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