The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday rejected accusations that its candidate in March 4’s Nantou County legislative by-election, former legislator Tsai Pei-hui (蔡培慧), is a “parachute candidate.”
DPP Deputy Secretary-General Huang Chien-chia (黃建嘉) said that criticism of Tsai by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate Lin Ming-chen (林明溱) should be measured against what he called Lin’s abuse of power to exploit the county’s finances and natural resources for personal gain.
Lin was in a conflict of interest when as Nantou County commissioner he appointed his son as a special assistant and hired another relative as chief office secretary, Huang said.
Photo: CNA
“Lin packed his family and relatives into positions in public projects,” he said.
Lin was Nantou County commissioner for two terms from 2014 to last year. Previously he was a legislator from 2008 to 2014, a county councilor for one term and served two terms as Jiji Township mayor from 1994 to 2002.
“Through these public offices, he hired his son and relatives to county government in flagrant abuses of power,” Huang said.
“As county commissioner, Lin exploited the people and county’s natural resources like a colony under control of his family’s fiefdom,” he added.
Huang also criticized Lin’s record.
“As commissioner, Nantou County’s population dropped to about 480,000. About 20 percent of businesses have closed. Throughout the county, many townships and villages have piled up garbage due to trash collection problems,” Huang said.
Lin earlier told a news conference at his campaign office that Tsai is a “parachute candidate” who serves “only her party’s needs, and she does not have local people’s best interest in mind.”
Tsai while canvassing responded by saying she served as executive secretary of the 921 Earthquake Reconstruction Foundation after a devastating earthquake centered in Jiji on Sept. 21, 1999, and worked to help townships and counties throughout Nantou recover.
“At that time, when Lin was mayor of Jiji Township, the funding for a local cultural festival came from our foundation,” she said.
A native of Nantou’s Yuchi Township (魚池), Tsai was previously a professor who conducted research into agriculture economies. She has also been a DPP legislator-at-large, during which time she said she secured funding to build road sections for farmers, and pushed to secure farmer retirement pensions.
At Lin’s news conference, KMT Culture and Communications Committee deputy director-general Lin Chia-hsing (林家興) said that Tsai supported projects that harmed the environment and “has no popular support.”
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
RSS