Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) took the party's helm yesterday, saying the DPP would listen to the voice of the public following its defeat in the legislative elections on Saturday.
The DPP suffered a bruising defeat in Saturday's elections, obtaining only 27 of the 113 legislative seats available.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) garnered 81, securing a comfortable two-thirds majority in the legislature.
Hsieh said that despite his reluctance to handle routine office work, the party had unanimously asked him to take over the position from President Chen Shui-bian (
"I promise to lead the party with courage and responsibility," he said. "I ask you for your help. There are so many people out there who have expectations for the party. We cannot let them down. There are many things to do."
Hsieh made the remarks after a provisional meeting by the party's Central Executive Committee at party headquarters yesterday morning.
ANOTHER CHANCE
Thanking voters for giving the DPP a lesson in the legislative elections, Hsieh said the party would reflect on the defeat and he asked voters to give the party another chance.
"We cannot hear the voices of the land if we don't stoop," he said. "We lost, so we expect jeering and sneering from our opponents. But we will lower our heads and listen to different opinions. We would like to recover the trust and strength of the people."
Hsieh refused to comment on a poll conducted by the Chinese-language China Times, which placed the KMT well ahead in the presidential election.
He said, however, that he expected the KMT would continue to exploit the effects of the legislative election to attempt to destroy the DPP's morale.
"We have our own numbers," he said, refusing to elaborate.
The poll claimed that the KMT's Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) had 51 percent public support, while Hsieh and his running mate, Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), had 20 percent.
RESHUFFLE
Regarding the party reshuffle, Hsieh said that he would like to keep it as small as possible, adding that he, along with the new appointees, would start their new jobs tomorrow.
He said he would like to see more young people at management level and for electoral and party affairs to be more simple and consistent.
DPP Cultural and Information Department Director Hsieh Hsin-ni (謝欣霓) said she and other party officials would resign following Chen's resignation to allow Hsieh to make the new appointments.
Meanwhile, Chen said yesterday that it was still too early to tell who would win the presidential election because the DPP's support base remained secure.
While he was willing to assist with the presidential election, he would let Hsieh dictate the campaign strategy, he said.
Chen made the remarks while meeting American Institute in Taiwan chairman Raymond Burghardt during a refueling stop in Anchorage, Alaska, on his way to Central America. The main purpose of Chen's five-day journey is to attend the inauguration of Guatemalan president-elect Alvaro Colom.
Government Information Office Minister Shieh Jhy-wey (
As long as the DPP's morale remains high, the election is simply too close to call, Chen said.
Hsieh said last night that his campaign manager, Lee Ying-yuan (
Hsieh vowed to run a clean campaign and asked his campaigners not to engage in any form of vote buying.
He also repeated his call to Ma to hold a debate with him and to stop avoiding it.
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
SHIFT PRIORITIES: The US should first help Taiwan respond to actions China is already taking, instead of focusing too heavily on deterring a large-scale invasion, an expert said US Air Force leaders on Thursday voiced concerns about the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) missile capabilities and its development of a “kill web,” and said that the US Department of Defense’s budget request for next year prioritizes bolstering defenses in the Indo-Pacific region due to the increasing threat posed by China. US experts said that a full-scale Chinese invasion of Taiwan is risky and unlikely, with Beijing more likely to pursue coercive tactics such as political warfare or blockades to achieve its goals. Senior air force and US Space Force leaders, including US Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink and
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
Czech officials have confirmed that Chinese agents surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March 2024 and planned a collision with her car as part of an “unprecedented” provocation by Beijing in Europe. Czech Military Intelligence learned that their Chinese counterparts attempted to create conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, which “did not go beyond the preparation stage,” agency director Petr Bartovsky told Czech Radio in a report yesterday. In addition, a Chinese diplomat ran a red light to maintain surveillance of the Taiwanese
RSS