More than 80 percent of students who took part in online mock elections ahead of the Jan. 11 polls voted for President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) as the next president, the National Students’ Union of Taiwan said yesterday.
The mock elections were jointly organized by groups including the Taiwan Youth Association for Democracy and the Taiwan Alliance for Advancement of Youth Rights and Welfare, as well as 35 university student unions, the union said.
Voting took place on Facebook from 8:20pm on Thursday last week to 8:20pm on Sunday, the groups said, adding that holders of student identification cards from senior high schools, vocational high schools and universities in Taiwan were allowed to vote for one presidential candidate and one political party.
Photo: CNA
A total of 11,369 valid votes were cast in the mock elections, union president Tan Ko-him (陳佑維) said, adding that invalid votes, such as those cast by non-students, were not counted.
University students accounted for 8,594 votes, while senior-high and vocational-high students accounted for 2,775, he said.
Tsai, of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), won the mock presidential election with 85.5 percent of the vote, he added.
People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) finished second with 9.8 percent and Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, garnered 4.7 percent of the vote for third place, Tan said.
Four political parties — the New Power Party (NPP), the DPP, the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) — secured at least 5 percent of the party vote, he said.
The NPP received 26.86 percent of the party votes, followed by the DPP at 25.78 percent, the Taiwan Statebuilding Party at 24.21 percent and the TPP at 11.87 percent, he said.
Legislator-at-large seats are to be divided among the parties that pass the threshold in the Jan. 11 legislative election.
With 454 votes, the Green Party Taiwan crossed the 3 percent threshold that would be required for a party to qualify for government subsidies, Tan said.
The KMT fell short of the 3 percent threshold with 341 votes, but reached the 2 percent threshold that would allow it to nominate legislator-at-large candidates in the next three legislative elections, the results showed.
The PFP received 1.81 percent of the votes, while the other 12 parties that were also included in the mock election each garnered less than 1 percent of the votes, Tan 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 first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
RSS