Despite predictions from most political observers that "celebrity candidates" would not win many votes, most of the first-time celebrity candidates were elected in yesterday's Taipei City councilor elections.
Among yesterday's 52 elected councilors, all five so-called celebrity politicians were elected, which pundits said could be a sign that "media politics" is likely to have an increasing influence in future elections.
According to Emile Sheng (
In Taipei's first constituency, the PFP's Wang Yu-cheng (
A New Party candidate, Chang Chung-tian (
Another winner in Taipei for the New Party was Hou Kuan-chiung (
In last year's legislative elections, the pro-unification New Party won only one legislative seat, in Kinmen, with 0.44 percent of the vote. All seven sitting lawmakers from the party, including Hsieh Chi-ta (
This time, facing its first election since that defeat, the New Party played it safe and nominated six candidates for the Taipei City councilor elections and just one in Kaohsiung City.
Yesterday's election, in which five of its nominees were elected, showed that the party's nominating strategy appeared to have worked.
Actor Ou-yang Lung (
In the same constituency, another PFP politician fresh on the scene, Wang Shin-yi (
Still, a few of the stars-turned-politicians failed to impress voters yesterday.
For example, the DPP's Aboriginal candidate for the one Aboriginal seat, Chen Yi-hsin (
Hsieh Chien-hui (
Wang Fang-ping (
"No matter how many votes we received, we think we won the election, since we were able to give a voice to [one of] society's difficulties in this campaign," Wang said in a press release last night.
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
A new board game set against the backdrop of armed conflict around Taiwan is to be released next month, amid renewed threats from Beijing, inviting players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years from now. China has ramped up military activity close to Taiwan in the past few years, including massing naval forces around the nation. The game, titled 2045, tasks players with navigating the troubles of war using colorful action cards and role-playing as characters involved in operations 10 days before a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan. That includes members of the armed forces, Chinese sleeper agents and pro-China politicians
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