Some of Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) former subordinates who are running in the legislative elections gathered at the Legislative Yuan yesterday to promote their campaigns and try to seduce voters with Ma's charms.
Although it is common for legislative candidates to promote their campaigns with endorsements from top party officials such as President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Ma, it is rare to see candidates running joint campaigns with separate endorsements from the same leader, since getting elected to the legislature depends more on individual rather than collective efforts.
Yet Ma's boy scouts, or "Ma's corps" (馬家軍), bonded well and seemed to be boosting not only Ma's popularity but also their own.
The corps includes former Taipei city government officials Lin Cheng-hsiu (林正修), Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) and Kung Wen-chi (孔文吉), incumbent official Su Yin-kuei (蘇盈貴), who is also an incumbent lawmaker, and Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆).
No warm-up
The five candidates said they wanted to campaign as a group and win all five seats on offer, but they denied their joint campaign was a warm-up for a possible presidential campaign by Ma in 2008.
"The legislative elections have nothing to do with Mayor Ma's intentions for the presidential election. We, former and incumbent city government officials, are simply campaigning sharing the same ideals," Wu said.
"The most important thing now is the legislative elections, and we cannot yet predict what will happen in the future," he said.
Lin expressed a similar opinion, saying that the Ma team was campaigning jointly because the members shared the same ideals.
"The Ma team represents society's core values, and Taiwan's future is what we care about most," Lin said.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus, meanwhile, again reminded the pan-blue camp of Ma's potential threat to other party leaders regarding the 2008 presidential bid.
"Ma has been campaigning hard for his corps. This shows that he focuses on his own team to improve his chances in the presidential election in 2008," Tsai said.
"If Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (
Tsai said that the DPP was happy to see Ma's corps solicit as many votes as possible, because the more votes Ma's corps secured, the more difficult it would be for the pan-blue candidates, who were on the verge of losing, to win the election, and easier for the pan-green candidates to win.
Tsai used Kung, an Aboriginal candidate, as an example and said that Kung's participation in the election had affected the campaigns of Walis Palin (
In response to the DPP caucus' remark, the KMT said that the Ma corps and the KMT shared the same goal, and the corps was merely trying to secure more votes for the pan-blue candidates and to improve the pan-blue campaign.
Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China when traveling in countries with close ties to Beijing, Taiwan Association of University Professors deputy chairman Chen Li-fu (陳俐甫) said on Friday. Chen’s comments came after China on Friday last week announced new judicial guidelines targeting Taiwanese independence advocates. Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Djibouti are among the countries where Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China, he said. The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday elevated the travel alert for China, Hong Kong and Macau to “orange” after Beijing announced its guidelines to “severely punish Taiwanese independence diehards for splitting the country and inciting secession.” Extradition treaties
Taiwan and Thailand have signed an agreement to promote and protect bilateral investment and trade, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN) said on Friday. The agreement on “Promotion and Protection of Investments” was signed by Representative to Thailand Chang Chun-fu (張俊福) and Thailand Trade and Economic Office in Taipei executive director Narong Boonsatheanwong on Thursday, the OTN said in a news release. Thailand has become the fifth trading partner to sign an investment agreement with Taiwan since 2016, following earlier agreements with the Philippines, India, Vietnam and Canada, the OTN said. The deal marks a significant milestone in the development of
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
CROSS-BORDER CRIME: The suspects cannot be charged with cybercrime in Indonesia as their targets were in Malaysia, an Indonesian immigration director said Indonesian immigration authorities have detained 103 Taiwanese after a raid at a villa on Bali, officials said yesterday. They were accused of misusing their visas and residence permits, and are suspected of possible cybercrimes, Safar Muhammad Godam, director of immigration supervision and enforcement at the Indonesian Ministry of Law and Human Rights told reporters at a news conference. “The 103 foreign nationals stayed at the villa and conducted suspicious activities, which we suspect are activities related to cybercrime activities,” he said, presenting laptops and routers at the news conference. Godam said Indonesian authorities cannot charge them with conducting cybercrime. “During the inspection, we