Legislators in Taipei are “mostly old people” who spend one-third of their time using their influence on behalf of voters, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said on Sunday.
Ko made the remarks at a press conference held by New Power Party (NPP) legislative candidate Freddy Lim (林昶佐) to promote Lim’s new book.
Ko said that there are “too many old people” among the current crop of legislators in Taipei.
The mayor said that during his time as director of National Taiwan University Hospital’s Department of Traumatology, he often encountered lawmakers attempting to help supporters skip waiting periods to secure beds.
Ko said that this practice is unnecessary in advanced countries and its prevalence indicates that there are problems in the nation’s systems.
Ko said lawmakers tout “good services for voters” and “loyal supporters,” with such self-promotion downgrading legislators — who address issues at a national level — to the level of a borough warden.
Taiwanese politics lacks “elements of inventiveness,” he said.
He told the audience a story about the legislative election.
“A reporter once asked my opinion on [President] Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) campaigning for legislative candidates. I said: Those candidates lead their opponents by a wide margin, so they would not worry about it. If they were only up by 5 percentage points, they probably would not have the audacity to ask Ma to endorse them,” Ko said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元) said that Ko, 56, is too old to be a mayor.
“A 55-year-old is too old to be a physician. An obsolete physician serving as Taipei mayor is a disaster for Taipei residents,” Tsai said.
Thirty-five earthquakes have exceeded 5.5 on the Richter scale so far this year, the most in 14 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said on Facebook on Thursday. A large earthquake in Hualien County on April 3 released five times as much the energy as the 921 Earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999, the agency said in its latest earthquake report for this year. Hualien County has had the most national earthquake alerts so far this year at 64, with Yilan County second with 23 and Changhua County third with nine, the agency said. The April 3 earthquake was what caused the increase in
INTIMIDATION: In addition to the likely military drills near Taiwan, China has also been waging a disinformation campaign to sow division between Taiwan and the US Beijing is poised to encircle Taiwan proper in military exercise “Joint Sword-2024C,” starting today or tomorrow, as President William Lai (賴清德) returns from his visit to diplomatic allies in the Pacific, a national security official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said that multiple intelligence sources showed that China is “highly likely” to launch new drills around Taiwan. Although the drills’ scale is unknown, there is little doubt that they are part of the military activities China initiated before Lai’s departure, they said. Beijing at the same time is conducting information warfare by fanning skepticism of the US and
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is unlikely to attempt an invasion of Taiwan during US president-elect Donald Trump’s time in office, Taiwanese and foreign academics said on Friday. Trump is set to begin his second term early next year. Xi’s ambition to establish China as a “true world power” has intensified over the years, but he would not initiate an invasion of Taiwan “in the near future,” as his top priority is to maintain the regime and his power, not unification, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University distinguished visiting professor and contemporary Chinese politics expert Akio Takahara said. Takahara made the comment at a
DEFENSE: This month’s shipment of 38 modern M1A2T tanks would begin to replace the US-made M60A3 and indigenous CM11 tanks, whose designs date to the 1980s The M1A2T tanks that Taiwan expects to take delivery of later this month are to spark a “qualitative leap” in the operational capabilities of the nation’s armored forces, a retired general told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) in an interview published yesterday. On Tuesday, the army in a statement said it anticipates receiving the first batch of 38 M1A2T Abrams main battle tanks from the US, out of 108 tanks ordered, in the coming weeks. The M1 Abrams main battle tank is a generation ahead of the Taiwanese army’s US-made M60A3 and indigenously developed CM11 tanks, which have
RSS