Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday that she would take responsibility if the party’s candidates did badly in next month’s special municipality elections.
“I will take any responsibility that I need to take, but our target is to elect more posts” on Nov. 27, said Tsai, the DPP’s mayoral candidate for Sinbei City, the new name of Taipei County after it is upgraded in December.
Her remarks come one day after DPP Secretary-General Wu Nai-jen (吳乃仁) said that past DPP chairpersons routinely stepped down following election losses.
“This is the DPP tradition,” he said after being questioned about a worst-case scenario.
Currently, the DPP holds two of the five mayoralties up for grabs — the greater Tainan and Kaohsiung areas. It is hoping to make inroads in either Taipei City or Taipei County, where both candidates have a chance of defeating their Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) counterparts, according to some polls.
The DPP’s chief election strategist, Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), said in Taichung County yesterday that the DPP would likely win “three-and-a-half seats” if the election were held tomorrow.
Busy shoring up support for DPP mayoral candidate for what will become Greater Taichung, Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) — who until recently was still trailing Tai-chung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) by double digits in the polls — Hsieh explained that the “half a seat” he mentioned referred to Sinbei, where Tsai is facing a tough challenge from KMT candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫).
DPP candidates for Taipei City, Greater Tainan and Greater Kaohsiung were as good as elected, Hsieh said.
A total lunar eclipse coinciding with the Lantern Festival on March 3 would be Taiwan’s most notable celestial event this year, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said, urging skywatchers not to miss it. There would be four eclipses worldwide this year — two solar eclipses and two lunar eclipses — the museum’s Web site says. Taiwan would be able to observe one of the lunar eclipses in its entirety on March 3. The eclipse would be visible as the moon rises at 5:50pm, already partly shaded by the Earth’s shadow, the museum said. It would peak at about 7:30pm, when the moon would
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday held a ceremony marking the delivery of its 11th Anping-class offshore patrol vessel Lanyu (蘭嶼艦), saying it would boost Taiwan’s ability to respond to Beijing’s “gray zone” tactics. Ocean Affairs Council Deputy Minister Chang Chung-Lung (張忠龍) presided over the CGA event in the Port of Kaoshiung. Representatives of the National Security Council also attended the event. Designed for long-range and protracted patrol operations at sea, the Lanyu is a 65.4m-long and 14.8m-wide ship with a top speed of 44 knots (81.5kph) and a cruising range of 2,000 nautical miles (3704km). The vessel is equipped with a
DEFENSE: The US should cancel the US visas or green cards of relatives of KMT and TPP lawmakers who have been blocking the budget, Grant Newsham said A retired US Marine Corps officer has suggested canceling the US green cards and visas of relatives of opposition Taiwanese lawmakers who have been stalling the review of a proposed NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.7 billion) special defense budget. The Executive Yuan has proposed the budget for major weapons purchases over eight years, from this year to 2033. However, opposition lawmakers have refused to review the proposal, demanding that President William Lai (賴清德) first appear before the Legislative Yuan to answer questions about the proposed budget. On Thursday last week, 37 bipartisan US lawmakers sent a letter to Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), the heads
Two siblings in their 70s were injured yesterday when they opened a parcel and it exploded, police in Yilan said, adding the brother and sister were both in stable condition. The two siblings, surnamed Hung (洪), had received the parcel two days earlier but did not open it until yesterday, the first day of the Lunar New Year holiday in Taiwan, police said. Chen Chin-cheng (陳金城), head of the Yilan County Government Police Bureau, said the package bore no postmark or names and was labeled only with the siblings’ address. Citing the findings of a
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