Former Taipei deputy mayor Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday announced she would run for Taipei mayor as an independent candidate in November, after resigning as deputy mayor on Saturday.
Huang made the announcement at a news conference in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖). Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and several Taipei City Government officials attended the event to show their support.
“Today is my last day as deputy mayor, and I will begin a new battle,” Huang said on Facebook on Saturday.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Ko yesterday said Huang has never been late for morning meetings as deputy mayor, and that she has been earnest and strongly dedicated to her job, including when she was a city councilor for six terms.
Ko said he believes Huang would uphold his principles of honesty, integrity and hard work in city governance if she is elected mayor.
Diligence and fighting corruption are the new Taipei values, she said, adding that the city would be run transparently and fairly under her leadership.
Only Taipei is capable of choosing a path that breaks from partisan fighting between the pan-blue and pan-green camps, as demonstrated by electing Ko as mayor eight years ago, she said.
Huang was first elected as a New Party city councilor in 1998, but left the party in 2001 and became a People First Party member in 2002. After serving 21 years on the city council, she was tapped by Ko to become deputy mayor in 2019.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator and Taipei mayoral candidate Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) yesterday said he respects Huang’s decision to run for mayor, but suggested that she is courting KMT voters, saying that only he represents the “rightful blue army” of the Republic of China.
Additional reporting by CNA
SECURITY: Starlink owner Elon Musk has taken pro-Beijing positions, and allowing pro-China companies to control Taiwan’s critical infrastructure is risky, a legislator said Starlink was reluctant to offer services in Taiwan because of the nation’s extremely high penetration rates in 4G and 5G services, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said yesterday. The ministry made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, which reviewed amendments to Article 36 of the Telecommunications Management Act (電信管理法). Article 36 bans foreigners from holding more than 49 percent of shares in public telecommunications networks, while shares foreigners directly and indirectly hold are also capped at 60 percent of the total, unless specified otherwise by law. The amendments, sponsored by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ko
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
RSS