Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), whose popularity within the party has created substantial pressure on her to run for president, will officially announce her candidacy today.
Party sources confirmed yesterday that Tsai had in the past week been working behind the scenes to shore up support from party heavyweights, hire office staff and make preparations for her declaration this morning.
Tsai is expected to easily take the nomination against former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), who announced her bid last week.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
Another potential challenger is former premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), though he has yet to make a declaration.
Tsai, 54, is widely seen as a potential formidable challenger to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who is expected to seek re-election.
Opinion polls about a year before the election show the two would be neck-and-neck, a situation reminiscent of the 2004 presidential election.
Tsai is seen as a next-generation leader within the DPP who helped the party get back on its feet after a series of devastating election losses in 2008. However, some say her aura faded slightly after she lost an election for New Taipei City mayor in November.
Party sources are calling the announcement the “next logical step” for the former vice premier under former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
Tsai, soft-spoken and seen as a scholarly figure, will likely play up her political skills in her campaign by capitalizing on public concerns over the pace of growing cross-strait ties to counter her relative lack of administrative experience.
Last month, she established two DPP-affiliated think tanks out of her remaining campaign funds from her New Taipei City mayor run to give the party more alternatives in cross-strait and economic policy.
It remains unclear who would be Tsai’s pick to run on her ticket next year.
Neither Tsai nor the DPP has provided official answers to questions about her candidacy, but party sources said invitations to her announcement in Taipei City had already been sent out to former party leaders, lawmakers and DPP mayors.
DPP sources said several prominent figures in her campaign would have close connections with the former Chen administration, including former Presidential Office director Lin Teh-hsun (林德訓) and former Chen spokesperson Lin Chin-chang (林錦昌).
In addition to seasoned politicians, Tsai’s campaign will include young DPP Taipei City councilors Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) and Juan Chao-hsiung (阮昭雄), who will act as spokespersons. It is believed that Lin Teh-hsun would head Tsai’s office on Changan E Road.
While Tsai will likely dominate the DPP ticket as the party primary warms up later this month, she will nevertheless have to contend with Lu and possibly Su and former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷).
A final decision on the DPP ticket is expected on May 4 at the latest, although it could take place much sooner pending negotiations on April 6. If those negotiations fall through, the DPP will hold telephone polls from April 25 to April 29.
To avoid a possible conflict of interest, DPP officials said Tsai had taken a leave of absence and that DPP caucus chief Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) would become acting chairperson.
“Party affairs will remain independent,” DPP spokesperson Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) said. “The DPP will fairly and successfully complete the presidential primary.”
There are indications that Tsai’s announcement, which she is expected to be make at 10am, has weeks of planning behind it, from the carefully crafted invitations to the sudden departure of some DPP staff for her campaign office that was finalized last week.
The invitation to the announcement at National Taiwan University Hospital’s International Convention Center reads: “Let us carry the heavy burden and set out from spring to welcome the time of the next difficult challenge.”
Sources close to Tsai’s campaign said she had likely made her decision early last week, although exploratory planning for the bid had taken place much earlier.
Tsai remained tight-lipped on the matter, even as she met with party heavyweights on Wednesday. Her decision could ruffle feathers within the party, as some members had hoped additional meetings between senior officials would be held before a contender was announced.
The official declaration will come just five days after Tsai invited other potential DPP presidential candidates to meet at party headquarters to reiterate the need for party unity and to avoid the damaging standoff of the 2008 campaign.
How Tsai reconciles calls for party unity with the need to further her own campaign in the party primary will be one of her most pressing tasks in the weeks ahead, DPP sources said.
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