After a landslide victory in the local elections on Saturday, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is planning to nominate a candidate for the 2024 president election by the first half of next year, a source said yesterday.
New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) — who convincingly won re-election, receiving more than 450,000 votes more than the runner-up, former Taichung mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) — is seen by many in the party as “the most legitimate” contender among KMT officials, the source said.
However, whether KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) would be willing to yield the opportunity to Hou remains to be seen, they added.
Ahead of Saturday, Chu set an ambitious goal of winning mayoral elections in more than three of the nation’s six special municipalities, among at least 16 races for top positions in cities and counties.
Although the KMT’s candidates came in third in Hsinchu City and Miaoli County, and the party lost in Penghu County and Kinmen County, winning four special municipalities and 13 cities or counties in total is an overall victory for the party, which came back from a crushing defeat in the four referendums on Dec. 18 last year.
Chu can take credit for the election wins, as well as putting the KMT back in charge of Taoyuan, which has been governed by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) since it was upgraded to a special municipality in 2014, political observers said.
Even if he did not run for president himself, Chu would certainly have a say in the party’s nomination, they said, adding that the focus of attention would be whether Chu would “maneuver the political machine … to block Hou.”
Although many KMT members regard Hou as having the best chance of winning the presidential election, running for the post only one year after winning re-election as mayor might be risky, some political watchers said.
Hou won re-election with about 62.42 percent of the vote, far exceeding the 57.2 percent of votes he received in 2018.
However, Hou should take into consideration whether the voters in New Taipei City would also support his presidential bid, they said.
Broadcasting Corp of China chairman Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康) yesterday said that Hou would have to convince those who voted for him and, if he decides to run for president, consider who could win in a byelection to replace him as mayor.
Another potential contender comes from central Taiwan.
Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) won re-election by defeating DPP candidate Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) by more than 270,000 votes, which makes her another possible presidential candidate for the KMT, political observers said.
Lu yesterday said she “never thought about” running for president, adding that her focus is on working hard for Taichung.
Additional reporting by Chen Chien-chih
STRONG RELATIONSHIPS: China would not blockade Taiwan, because President Xi respects him, and Russia would not have invaded if he were president, he said Former US president and the Republican candidate in next month’s presidential election Donald Trump said he would impose additional tariffs on China if China were to “go into Taiwan,” the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported. “I would say: If you go into Taiwan, I’m sorry to do this, I’m going to tax you, at 150 percent to 200 percent,” Trump was quoted as saying in an interview with the WSJ published on Friday. Asked if he would use military force against a blockade on Taiwan by China, Trump said it would not come to that because Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) respected
The Taipei Department of Transportation discouraged YouBike 2.0E users from taking them on long-distance trips after a Taipei city councilor said that riders often use the new electric bike, YouBike 2.0E, to climb Yangmingshan (陽明山). Taipei earlier this year began offering the first 30 minutes of YouBike 2.0 rentals for free, with Taipei and New Taipei offering the YouBike 2.0E on Aug. 30 to encourage rider usage. For YouBike 2.0, the rate is NT$10 per 30 minutes within the first four hours, NT$20 per 30 minutes for five to eight hours and NT$40 per 30 minutes after eight hours. Meanwhile, for e-bikes,
RESOURCE RICH: Taiwan is located in the Pacific Ring of Fire and has up to 30 gigawatts of the potential energy, of which 10 gigawatts could be economically viable Academia Sinica and CPC Corp yesterday began drilling the nation’s first deep geothermal well in Yilan County’s Yuanshan Township (員山). The 4km-deep well is expected to take 18 months to complete and has an estimated investment of NT$337 million (US$10.54 million), Academia Sinica President James Liao (廖俊智) said. “While Taiwan has up to 30 gigawatts of potential deep geothermal energy, with an estimated 10 gigawatts being economically viable, only by digging wells can we determine the actual amount of commercially viable geothermal energy,” Liao said at the project’s opening ceremony. Data collected during and after the excavation process would be used for future
HACKERS’ MARKET: Chat logs about Taiwan and documents outlining ways to take over online accounts were leaked from a company that sells data from hacks Taiwanese cybersecurity specialists found 577 leaked documents which show that the Chinese Communist Party is engaging in “cognitive warfare” against Taiwan through cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns, a documentary released last month by Japanese public broadcaster NHK showed. The filmmakers behind Tracking China’s Leaked Documents said they spent six months visiting seven countries, including Taiwan, where they interviewed members of TeamT5, a malware research and cybersecurity firm, which found the leaked documents. TeamT5 said they discovered a string of mysterious URLs on the social media platform X, which they suspected could be accounts created by hackers or people who leaked data, which led