Although the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has called for a gentlemanly contest in its mayoral primaries, Taipei hopeful Ting Shou-chong (丁守中) yesterday lashed rival Hau Lung-bin's (郝龍斌) over his political loyalties and expressed disappointment about another hopeful's withdrawal over a campaign ad that targeted Hau.
The KMT yesterday held a forum for its Taipei mayoral hopefuls which was televised live by China Television (CTV). KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
"The primary regulations do not allow personal attacks or violation of a candidate's privacy. We don't want the primary to damage party harmony," Ma said yesterday.
During the forum, however, Ting, a KMT legislator, lambasted Hau for working for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government as the former Environmental Protection Administration head and campaigning for Council of Labor Affairs Chairman Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) when he was running against Ma as the DPP's Taipei mayoral candidate in 2004.
"In a democratic election, both a candidate's good and bad points should be examined. Hau accused former deputy mayor Yeh of being too eager to harm him with the ad. I think the accusations were a little overdone," Ting said.
Yeh, a former Taipei deputy mayor, withdrew from the primary last week over a campaign ad questioning Hau's political loyalties. The ad drew serious criticism from Hau and other party members as well as a written reprimand from the party.
Hau declined to make any response to Ting's accusations and hit out at the DPP instead.
`Rreal democracy'
"I will keep a low profile and raise the integrity of the primary by making no criticism of my rival ... but compared to the DPP, which has failed to choose its candidate in a fair manner, the KMT's primary to decide upon a candidate is real democracy," Hau said.
Hau vowed to continue to promote integrity within the city government's staff to ensure that it is corruption free, and presented a "zero-tolerance policy" aimed at solving problems Taipei residents cannot tolerate.
With KMT legislators Alex Tsai (
Random phone poll
The party will hold a random telephone poll from May 21 to May 23, followed by KMT member voting on May 27. The telephone survey accounts for 70 percent of the final outcome, while voting makes up only 30 percent.
Meanwhile, eight KMT members vying to be the party's candidate for the Kaohsiung mayoral election slugged it out during a televised debate held by local cable news channel TVBS yesterday.
KMT Legislator Lee Chuan-chiao (李全教), Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順), Apollo Chen (陳學聖), Lwo Shih-hsiung (羅世雄), former Kaohsiung deputy mayor Huang Jun-ying (黃俊英), former legislator Su Ying-kuei (蘇盈貴), former Penghu County commissioner Lai Feng-wei (賴峰偉) and former Kaohsiung City Council speaker Huang Chi-chuan (黃啟川) each presented their platforms in a bid to show their capacity to lead the city.
The KMT's primary for its Kaohsiung candidate will take place the same day as its primary for the Taipei mayoral election.
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
RSS