Chen Chih-chung (陳致中), former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) son, yesterday won the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) nomination to run for a council seat in Kaohsiung.
The DPP on Wednesday announced the results of three opinion polls conducted by telephone, which saw Chen Chih-chung topping the polls for the city’s 10th constituency, which consists of Cianjhen (前鎮) and Siaogang (小港) districts.
Chen Chih-chung garnered support from 24.38 percent of the respondents, followed by first-time candidate Hsu Nai-wen (許乃文) with 19.25 percent, and Kaohsiung city councilors Cheng Kuang-feng (鄭光峰), Chen Hsin-yu (陳信瑜), Lin Wang-jung (林宛蓉) and Wu Ming-tsu (吳銘賜) with 15.56 percent, 14.07 percent, 13.6 percent and 13.13 percent respectively.
Photo: Chang Chung-yi, Taipei Times
The DPP would nominate the first five candidates to run in the constituency, which has eight seats.
The nominations are awaiting approval by the DPP Central Executive Commission.
Chen Chih-chung thanked supporters on Facebook, saying the DPP is seeking to secure a 50 percent majority in the city council in the nine-in-one elections scheduled for Nov. 24.
“[I] will be humble and hardworking and repay supporters with passion and action,” he said.
The controversial presence of Chen Shui-bian during his son’s campaign event on Saturday is believed to have boosted Chen Chih-chung’s support.
Chen Shui-bian, who served more than six years of a 20-year sentence for corruption and was released on medical parole in 2015, was permitted to attend the Saturday event on the condition that he would not make an appearance on stage.
The former president nevertheless went on stage and gave his son a hug in support of his bid.
Chen Shui-bian also wrote a note asking voters to support his son ahead of the polling on Wednesday.
In 2010, Chen Chih-chung withdrew from the DPP and won a councilor seat as an independent candidate, but he was disqualified the following year after he was convicted of perjury in the corruption cases of Chen Shui-bian.
In 2012, Chen Chih-chung joined the legislative elections as an independent, but lost to his Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and DPP rivals.
He rejoined the DPP in 2013 and announced his bid for a councilor seat in Kaohsiung last year.
A small number of Taiwanese this year lost their citizenship rights after traveling in China and obtaining a one-time Chinese passport to cross the border into Russia, a source said today. The people signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of neighboring Russia with companies claiming they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, the source said on condition of anonymity. The travelers were actually issued one-time-use Chinese passports, they said. Taiwanese are prohibited from holding a Chinese passport or household registration. If found to have a Chinese ID, they may lose their resident status under Article 9-1
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
PROBLEMATIC APP: Citing more than 1,000 fraud cases, the government is taking the app down for a year, but opposition voices are calling it censorship Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday decried a government plan to suspend access to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (小紅書) for one year as censorship, while the Presidential Office backed the plan. The Ministry of the Interior on Thursday cited security risks and accusations that the Instagram-like app, known as Rednote in English, had figured in more than 1,700 fraud cases since last year. The company, which has about 3 million users in Taiwan, has not yet responded to requests for comment. “Many people online are already asking ‘How to climb over the firewall to access Xiaohongshu,’” Cheng posted on
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS