People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) yesterday said he would consider running for president if he thinks the two major parties’ policies have been “hijacked by fundamentalists.”
The PFP held a press conference in Taipei to announce its five legislative candidates for the Jan. 16 elections. Three of the candidates are former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators, including Chang Sho-wen (張碩文), who just withdrew from the KMT earlier this week.
Soong likened the KMT to an apothecary that “sells counterfeit medicine.”
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
“It is not that the PFP has turned ‘green,’” Soong said, addressing criticism that the party has aligned itself with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). “It is that we can no longer say for sure whether the KMT is lan [藍, blue] or just lan [爛, rotten].”
The PFP has always been Sun Yat-sen’s (孫逸仙) disciple and a resolute follower of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) path in safeguarding the Constitution of the Republic of China and Taiwanese democracy, as well as pushing for cross-strait reconciliation, Soong said.
“The PFP is willing to stand by good KMT candidates, but if the KMT cannot break away from [President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) inner circle], we have no other choice but to field our own,” the chairman said.
When asked whether he would run for president, Soong said he would consider the possibility if the public calls for it, but added that it was not yet time to make a decision and he would continue to keep an eye on the KMT’s and the DPP’s policies.
Separately yesterday, KMT Legislator Cheng Ru-fen (鄭汝芬) of Changhua County said she would turn down the party’s legislative nomination. She is the seventh KMT lawmaker who has decided not to run for another term.
Cheng’s announcement came hours after KMT Legislator Chang Chia-chun (張嘉郡) voiced her misgivings about KMT presumptive presidential nominee Hung Hsiu-chu’s (洪秀柱) cross-strait proposal of “one China, common interpretation” and threatened to withdraw from the party.
“Public opinion has changed after the nine-in-one elections in November last year. The KMT would be going against the tide of public opinion if it does not undertake reforms,” Cheng said.
Hung, when asked about the show of disapproval from several KMT lawmakers, said she would work on improving communication with lawmakers.
Hung’s spokesperson, Jack Yu (游梓翔), said that the deputy legislative speaker’s team has been communicating with party comrades about her cross-strait policy.
He said that after talking to some party members, they “have grasped the content of the policy and believe that Hung’s cross-strait policy reflects Taiwanese mainstream opinion.”
The policy is a demand that “Beijing respect the existence of the Republic of China as a fact, based on the ‘1992 consensus,’” Yu said.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
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