Former New Power Party (NPP) legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) on Thursday announced that he had filed the necessary documents to join the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), which is set to nominate him as a legislator-at-large candidate.
Huang announced his decision in a letter to his colleagues at the Taiwan Anti-corruption and Whistleblower Protection Association, which he cofounded, saying he identifies with Ko’s vision of forming Taiwan’s first coalition government.
Huang and TPP Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) appeared on Thursday night on a livestreamed program hosted by influencer Holger Chen (陳之漢), during which Ko said he would like to recruit Huang and put him on the TPP’s list of legislator-at-large nominees, to be unveiled tomorrow.
Photo: Taipei Times
Ko said he stumped for Huang when he was campaigning for a legislative seat in New Taipei City’s Sijhih District (汐止) in 2016.
“He’s the man,” Ko said, praising Huang’s ability to discover corruption in his former capacity as a legislator.
Huang said during the show that he supported the idea of a coalition government as he is against the over-concentration of political power, which he said has been a hallmark of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration over the past seven years.
He said after the student-led Sunflower movement against the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement in 2014 turned into a brutal crackdown on protesters, DPP politicians promised to work to abolish the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) and push through a cross-strait agreement supervisory act, promises that have still not been realized.
“Any administration, DPP or Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), needs effective checks and balances, without which there will be an over-concentration of power, which is what we are witnessing now,” Huang said.
Earlier in the day, the New Power Party, which Huang cofounded, said in a statement that it had received Huang’s application to renounce his membership.
Fellow Sunflower movement leader Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) on Facebook yesterday said he was not surprised by Huang’s decision, “but more than that, I am sad for him.”
“Of course, it is equally inconceivable to me that he would stand with the KMT and TPP in advocating the reopening of the service trade agreement” or supporting the so-called “1992 consensus,” said Lin, who until recently was the DPP deputy secretary-general.
Ko earlier this year proposed restarting talks on the service trade agreement, despite also participating in Sunflower movement protests at the time.
“Protecting Taiwan from Chinese annexation is the reason we came together,” Lin said. “Ten years later, defending Taiwan is still the most important thing.”
Additional reporting by Kayleigh Madjar
Left-Handed Girl (左撇子女孩), a film by Taiwanese director Tsou Shih-ching (鄒時擎) and cowritten by Oscar-winning director Sean Baker, won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution at the Cannes Critics’ Week on Wednesday. The award, which includes a 20,000 euro (US$22,656) prize, is intended to support the French release of a first or second feature film by a new director. According to Critics’ Week, the prize would go to the film’s French distributor, Le Pacte. "A melodrama full of twists and turns, Left-Handed Girl retraces the daily life of a single mother and her two daughters in Taipei, combining the irresistible charm of
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing for residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties to acquire Chinese ID cards in a bid to “blur national identities,” a source said. The efforts are part of China’s promotion of a “Kinmen-Xiamen twin-city living sphere, including a cross-strait integration pilot zone in China’s Fujian Province,” the source said. “The CCP is already treating residents of these outlying islands as Chinese citizens. It has also intensified its ‘united front’ efforts and infiltration of those islands,” the source said. “There is increasing evidence of espionage in Kinmen, particularly of Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the
88.2 PERCENT INCREASE: The variants driving the current outbreak are not causing more severe symptoms, but are ‘more contagious’ than previous variants, an expert said Number of COVID-19 cases in the nation is surging, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) describing the ongoing wave of infections as “rapid and intense,” and projecting that the outbreak would continue through the end of July. A total of 19,097 outpatient and emergency visits related to COVID-19 were reported from May 11 to Saturday last week, an 88.2 percent increase from the previous week’s 10,149 visits, CDC data showed. The nearly 90 percent surge in case numbers also marks the sixth consecutive weekly increase, although the total remains below the 23,778 recorded during the same period last year,