Senior officials of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the People's First Party (PFP) will meet today, according to reports in the Chinese-language media yesterday, triggering speculation that the parties are seeking to mend rifts caused by the KMT's vote allocation strategy in the legislative elections.
The reports said KMT Secretary-General Lin Fong-cheng (林豐正) would meet PFP Deputy Secretary-General Chin Chin-sheng (秦金生).
KMT spokesperson Chang Jung-kung (張榮恭) was unable to confirm the reports yesterday, saying he had heard of such a meeting but had been unable to ascertain its existence.
The reported meeting comes on the heels of publicized rifts over the KMT's plans to allocate votes only for KMT candidates, not those of its allies.
Those stories caused consternation within the PFP, since the two parties have made their cooperative push for a pan-blue majority in the Dec. 11 elections a major point of their campaigns.
The controversy began when Lin said on Saturday that his party is in the midst of planning how to maximize the number of its candidates that will win seats.
The KMT, Lin said, would use a vote allocation system to ensure that no votes are wasted in its efforts to ensure the pan-blue alliance wins a majority of seats in the legislature.
PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) has since used every public opportunity to hammer home the message that the pan-blues will not win a majority without his party's support and to criticize the KMT.
On Sunday in Pingtung, for example, Soong mentioned an ad run a month ago by a KMT candidate in Kaohshiung, Lee Fu-hsing (李復興). That ad had criticized Soong as being "even more fearsome than the enemy."
Soong accused the KMT of stabbing the PFP in the back by harboring "unfilial" members within its ranks.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
An orange gas cloud that leaked from a waste management plant yesterday morning in Taoyuan’s Guanyin District (觀音) was likely caused by acidic waste, authorities said, adding that it posed no immediate harm. The leak occurred at a plant in the district’s Environmental Science and Technology Park at about 7am, the Taoyuan Fire Department said. Firefighters discovered a cloud of unidentified orange gas leaking from a waste tank when they arrived on the site, it said, adding that they put on Level A chemical protection before entering the building. After finding there was no continuous leak, the department worked with the city’s Department
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
RSS