Taiwan New Constitution Foundation founder Koo Kwang-ming (辜寬敏) is determined to persuade President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and former premier William Lai (賴清德) to run on the same ticket in next year’s presidential election, a source close to the senior Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) member said.
Koo, a veteran Taiwanese independence advocate, has already scheduled a meeting with Lai and is expected to meet with Tsai, the source said, adding that “even a train might not be able to stop his determination” to get them to be running mates.
After winning the party’s nomination last month, Tsai visited Koo at the Taipei Veterans General Hospital, where he was recovering from surgery.
Photo: Lee Hsin-fang, Taipei Times
Koo, who had supported Lai in the primary, was reportedly touched by Tsai’s visit and thereafter decided to help unite the party.
Koo consulted several party members and grassroots supporters, and the general consensus was that a Tsai-Lai ticket would best benefit the party’s chances in January next year, the source said.
Koo believes that this election is crucial to Taiwan’s development and that people should set aside personal preferences so that the DPP could stay in power, they said.
Tsai and Lai complement each other, foundation executive director Lin Yi-cheng (林宜正) said, adding that Lai has a high approval rating among voters aged 50 and above, while Tsai is supported by many young voters.
Grassroots DPP supporters expect Tsai and Lai to run together, he said.
An unnamed DPP member said that Tsai and Lai need to think about how they are going to unite the party, adding that Lai would definitely play a role in the election, but the specifics would be up to them.
Right now, the DPP should try to get Tsai and Lai to run on the same ticket, the source close to Koo said, adding that Koo is also working to unify differing factions within the pro-independence camp.
As long as the DPP pushes a Tsai-Lai ticket, the other conflicts within the pro-independence camp “should be resolved,” they added.
After Tsai’s victory in the party’s presidential primary was announced, DPP Chairman Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that a Tsai-Lai ticket was one of many ways the two could work together.
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
RSS