The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chose Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) as its candidate for the Taipei mayoral election yesterday, with Hau winning a 60 percent support rate from party members and Taipei residents in the party's primary.
Hau, a former Environmental Protection Administration chief, won the primary with an overall 59.68 percent rate of support. His rival, KMT Legislator Ting Shou-chung (
The winner was decided through a telephone survey and a vote among members, with the survey accounting for 70 percent of the final outcome and voting making up 30 percent. The party conducted a random telephone poll from May 21 to May 23, followed by a vote by members yesterday.
PHOTO: LIAO CHEN-HUEI, TAIPEI TIMES
Ting, however, won the most support among party members, attracting 10,730 votes yesterday compared with Hau's 6,412. The voter turnout rate was 38.7 percent. But Hau won the most support in three surveys conducted by three different polling firms, with an average 60 percent of those polled backing him, while Ting received an average support rate of 30.76 percent.
"I will continue a gentlemen's competition with my future rivals from other parties and earn residents' support with a good municipal blueprint ? We will run a clean election," Hau said at KMT headquarters after the primary result was announced.
Ting expressed regret over the result, and urged the KMT to examine its primary procedure.
"There is a big disparity between the result of the party member vote and the poll. I think it shows that it's necessary for the KMT to re-examine the primary mechanism," he said at his campaign headquarters.
Questioning the primary system's design, Ting issued a statement last night saying he would not accept the primary result.
KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
"I hope all party members will support the party's nominee whether or not they supported him before," Ma said after voting at Chin Hsin Elementary School.
Hau cast his vote with his father, former premier Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村), while Ting accompanied former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) to vote.
Kaohsiung undecided
Meanwhile in the KMT's Kaohsiung primary, former Kaohsiung deputy mayor Huang Jun-ying (黃俊英) won an average of 29 percent support, beating the seven other hopefuls. But as the party required a minimum 30 percent support rate to win the primary, the KMT will hold a second vote in 15 days to select the final candidate.
The other seven included KMT Legislator Lee Chuan-chiao (李全教), Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順), Apollo Chen (陳學聖), Lwo Shih-hsiung (羅世雄), former legislator Su Ying-kuei (蘇盈貴), former Penghu County commissioner Lai Feng-wei (賴峰偉) and former Kaohsiung City speaker Huang Chi-chuan (黃啟川).
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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