Former labor minister Hsu Ming-chun (許銘春) on Tuesday announced her intention to run in the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) primary to select its candidate for the Kaohsiung mayoral election scheduled for 2026, making her the most recent entrant in what is becoming a crowded race.
Hsu, who served as the southern port city’s deputy mayor between 2016 and 2018, is the fifth member of the ruling party to declare a bid for its Kaohsiung mayoral primary election, even though Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) has not yet reached the halfway point of his term.
DPP lawmakers Lin Dai-hua (林岱樺), Lai Jui-lung (賴瑞隆), Chiu Yi-ying (邱議瑩) and Hsu Chih-chieh (許智傑) have already expressed their intentions to stand in the primary election.
Photo: Taipei Times
The DPP’s approach is different from that of the main opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), for which Legislator Ko Chih-en (柯志恩) is widely regarded as its most likely candidate in the 2026 election.
Ko, who garnered nearly 530,000 votes in 2022, failed to unseat Chen, who obtained 766,147 ballots.
While all the DPP candidates have emphasized the importance of unity in the race, their opinions differ on when the primary election should be held.
Following Hsu Ming-chun’s declaration, Hsu Chih-chieh urged the DPP to hold the primary six months earlier than scheduled to prevent the party’s supporters from worrying for too long, local Chinese-language media reported.
While Lin said it was important to meet the voters’ expectations regardless of the timing, Chiu said it is still “way too early” to discuss the matter given how much time remains in Chen’s term, local media reported.
Kaohsiung, the third-most-populous special municipality in Taiwan, has long been a DPP stronghold since Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) was elected mayor in 1998.
Other than Yang Ming-chou (楊明州), who served for two months as acting mayor in 2020, the only non-DPP mayor to govern Kaohsiung since 1998 is Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT, who won the mayoral election in 2018. However, in June 2020, Han became the first mayor in Taiwan’s history to be recalled by popular vote.
NATIONAL SECURITY: Authorities are working to confirm the identities of the military personnel involved and investigating possible illegal conduct and regulatory violations Authorities are probing possible national security implications after Kinmen police and immigration officers on Sunday found a Chinese woman allegedly posing as a tourist while engaging in prostitution involving more than 10 military personnel. The woman, surnamed Chen (陳), has since been deported, authorities said, adding that investigators are still working to confirm the identities of those implicated, as the records only listed code names and aliases. The case stemmed from a report received by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday last week from the Jinhu Precinct of the Kinmen County Police Bureau. On Sunday, police, along with the National Immigration
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
REASONS FOR TRAVEL: An assistant professor said that proposed amendments to penalize drivers if they used drugs overseas would not deter people from traveling People who operate a motor vehicle under the influence of marijuana would have their driver’s license revoked, even if they used the substance while overseas, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday, citing proposed amendments to the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act (道路交通管理處罰條例). The amendments would also authorize the government to revoke the licenses of people determined to have used Category 1 or Category 2 narcotics, even if they were not operating a vehicle while under the influence of drugs, as well as ban them from taking the license test for three years, the ministry said. People aged 18 or
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
RSS