Former vice premier Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took nearly 60 percent of the votes in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairperson race yesterday to become the party's first chairwoman.
About 129,000 of the party’s 250,000 eligible members voted in yesterday’s election, making the turnout 51.7 percent. Tsai triumphed with 73,892 votes, or 57.1 percent, while former senior presidential adviser, 82-year-old Koo Kwang-ming (辜寬敏), received 48,882 votes, or 37.8 percent.
Legislator Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮), who dropped out of the race to throw his support behind Koo, received 6,530 votes as his withdrawal was anounced too late for his name to be erased from the ballots.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Tsai topped Koo in most constituencies except for Chiayi City, Penghu, Hualien, Chuanghua and with overseas party members.
Outgoing DPP chairman Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), accompanied by Tsai and Koo, held a press conference at DPP headquarters in Taipei to announce Tsai’s victory.
“With more than 73,000 party members voting for her, Miss Tsai Ing-wen has officially been elected the new chairwoman of the party,” Hsieh said. “I would like to offer my congratulations to her.”
Koo conceded defeat immediately and congratulated Tsai.
The chairwoman-elect vowed to overcome all challenges.
“As the party chair race comes to an end, our challenges are just beginning,” Tsai said. “After [tomorrow], we will become an opposition party, and will have no more resources — but I am determined to lead the party into a new age.”
She said that under her leadership the DPP would work more closely with civic groups and grassroots organizations.
“The DPP will protect Taiwan’s sovereignty, its democracy and insist on social justice,” she said. “I’m confident that we can restore the public’s faith in the party and the DPP will rise again.”
Asked about power struggles and conflicts among the party’s many factions, Tsai said she was not concerned.
“Of course there were conflicts during the [party chair] race, but there were no wounds,” she said. “And as a party that’s going out of power, I don’t think there will be any power struggles. Instead, there will be only shouldering of responsibility — and we welcome anyone to join us to share that responsibility.”
Tsai said she would seek advice from inside and outside the party.
“I will start by talking to Koo and Chen Shih-meng [陳師孟], since they’ve presented many great ideas during the election campaign,” Tsai said.
Chen was the top campaigner for Koo during the party chair race.
As former chairwoman of the Mainland Affairs Council, Tsai said she would pay close attention to the new Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government’s cross-strait policies.
“We’ll remind them when their policies lack careful consideration and we’ll criticize them when they make mistakes,” Tsai said.
Immediately after Hsieh announced the election results a DPP member surnamed Huang (黃) appeared at the press conference venue and shouted out: “The election is invalid! The valid vote number is zero!”
He was quickly removed by party staff.
In addition to electing the party chairperson, DPP members also voted for directors of the party’s local chapters.
Several former legislators who were defeated in January’s legislative elections won local chapter directorships, including Taipei County director Wu Ping-jui (吳秉叡), Miaoli County director Tu Wen-ching (杜文卿), Taichung County’s Kuo Chun-ming (郭俊銘), Chunghua County’s Charles Chiang (江昭儀) and Tainan County’s Cheng Kuo-chung (鄭國忠).
Legislator Chen Chi-yu (陳啟昱) was elected Kaohsiung County chapter director.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS