The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday decided to launch a mechanism to seek integration between its four Taipei mayoral aspirants and a pair of independents, so that the pan-green camp would have the best chance of winning in November.
The independents are National Taiwan University Hospital physician Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and writer Neil Peng (馮光遠).
“We have concluded that the mechanism would be established in Taipei and such mechanism would be inevitable because our supporters long for a victory that would unseat the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] in the capital,” DDP spokesperson Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said after a meeting of the party’s task force for the seven-in-one municipal elections.
While details of the mechanism still have to be decided, probably in a second meeting of the task force, it is certain that the final candidate will be decided by a poll, or two polls, between the four DPP members, Ko and Peng, Lin said.
The DPP’s hopefuls are former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), attorney Wellington Koo (顧立雄) and legislators Pasuya Yao (姚文智) and Hsu Tain-tsair (許添財).
It is not known if all six have accepted the idea of using the DPP’s mechanism.
If such a mechanism was established and Ko — who has been leading his pan-green camp rivals in recent media surveys, finished with the best results in the DPP’s poll — the DPP reportedly would not nominate its own candidate for the Taipei race.
Taipei and Kaohsiung have extended an open invitation to Japanese pop star Ayumi Hamasaki after Chinese authorities abruptly canceled her scheduled concert in Shanghai. Hamasaki, 47, had been slated to perform on Saturday before organizers pulled the show at the last minute, citing “force majeure,” a move widely viewed as retaliation for Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s recent remark that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could draw a military response from Tokyo. Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) yesterday said the city “very much welcomes” Hamasaki’s return and would continue to “surprise” her. Hamasaki, who has a large global fan base, including
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Starting next month, people who signed up for the TPass 2.0 program can receive a 15 percent rebate for trips on mid to long-distance freeway buses or on buses headed to the east coast twice every month, the Highway Bureau said. Bureau Director-General Lin Fu-shan (林福山) said the government started TPass 2.0 to offer rebates to frequent riders of public transportation, or people who use city buses, highway buses, trains or MRTs at least 11 times per month. As of Nov. 12, 265,000 people have registered for TPass 2.0, and about 16.56 million trips between February and September qualified for
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