The New Power Party (NPP) on Thursday announced its first list of candidates to contest city and county councilor positions in November’s local elections, but it declined to confirm whether it would field any mayoral candidates.
The NPP said it has chosen six men and four women to run for councilor positions in Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan, as well as Yilan and Hualien counties.
The party “hopes to bring more young talent into local councils,” NPP Chairwoman Chen Jiau-hua (陳椒華) said, adding that it aims to field as many as 50 councilor candidates across Taiwan.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
The party is expected to announce more candidates in the following weeks, including incumbent councilors seeking re-election, Chen said.
NPP Secretary-General Christy Pai (白卿芬) said that it took the party a long time to settle on “the best candidates,” who are prominent in fields such as advocacy, politics and social services.
The 10 candidates include former diplomat Liu Shih-chieh (劉仕傑), who is the NPP’s director of international affairs.
Liu, 41, said that if he is elected as a Taipei city councilor, he would focus on promoting bilingual education, and addressing traffic and safety problems.
Wu Hsiang-chun (吳香君), a founding member of the NPP who has worked in the party’s election campaigns for eight years, is to run for city councilor in New Taipei City’s fourth electoral district, which includes Sinjhuang District (新莊).
Asked whether the party would put up mayoral candidates, Chen said that “we certainly hope to have our own candidates.”
Hsinchu is where the NPP is most likely to field a mayoral candidate, she said, adding that “a lot of people have been encouraging” NPP Legislator Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智) to run there.
The party is still assessing the situation, Chen said, making mention of a Democratic Progressive Party push to merge Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County into a special municipality.
The NPP has had more support in the Hsinchu region than in any other part of Taiwan, with four of its 11 councilors in the region.
It would not rule out collaborating with other parties in mayoral elections, Chen said.
SELF-RELIANCE: Taiwan would struggle to receive aid in the event of an invasion, so it must prepare to ‘hold its own’ for the first 70 days of a war, a defense expert said Taiwan should strengthen infrastructure, stock up on reserves and step up efforts to encourage Taiwanese to fight against an enemy, legislators and experts said on Tuesday last week. The comments sought to summarize what the nation should learn from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has exceeded 300 days, since Feb. 24 last year. Institute of National Defense and Security Research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) said that the war in Ukraine highlighted the importance of being ready for war. Taiwan’s development of an “asymmetrical warfare” doctrine and extending mandatory conscription to one year is a good start to preparation of defense against a
The Central Epidemic Command Center yesterday said it would delay the lifting of the indoor mask mandate, citing public health considerations and ongoing discussions on how the policy should be implemented. Earlier this week, Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the CECC’s spokesman, said officials from several ministries were working on the policy and an announcement would be made yesterday. However, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝), who heads the CECC, yesterday said that the policy was still under review. Wang said its implementation would be “delayed slightly” due to three main factors. First, the center
END OF SERIES: As the first generation of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines are set to expire, the CECC would no longer offer them to children younger than four years old The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported the nation’s first case of a person infected with the Omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant of SARS-CoV-2. The Taiwanese man in his 20s arrived from Canada on Jan. 22, said Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), who is deputy head of the CECC’s medical response division. He tested positive after reporting having a runny nose and muscle soreness while in airport quarantine, Lo said. The XBB.1.5 subvariant is the dominant strain in the US, but there is no evidence to suggest that it causes more severe illness than other Omicron subvariants, he said,
NORMALIZING TIES: The delegation led by the KMT’s Johnny Chiang is to meet with British lawmakers, think tanks and business groups to discuss developments A legislative delegation led by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) arrived in the UK yesterday to rally support for Taiwan’s bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Chiang heads the Legislative Yuan’s Taiwan-UK Interparliamentary Amity Association. The delegation also includes KMT legislators Ma Wen-chun (馬文君), Wen Yu-hsia (溫玉霞), Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷), Sandy Yu (游毓蘭) and Wu I-ding (吳怡玎). The group is to meet with British lawmakers Alicia Kearns, who chairs the British House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee; Tobias Ellwood, who chairs the House Defence Select Committee; and Bob Stewart, who cochairs the
RSS