President Chen Shui-bian (
The DPP has scheduled more than 30 massive rallies for the last two weeks prior to the elections, with two to three rallies every night.
Chen, who has just concluded a four-week truck tour around the country, participated in the first of the rallies on Friday in Nantou and Changhua counties.
PHOTO: CHENG SHU-TING, TAIPEI TIMES
Rallies were held in Chiayi City and Pingtung County yesterday and will be held in Taipei and Taoyuan counties today.
Chen and Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) were to both take part in the rally in Chiayi City, with the theme of "protecting the holy land of democracy, continuing green rule" to boost the re-election bid of Chiayi Mayor Chen Li-chen (陳麗貞).
DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), a former Pingtung County commissioner, was to join the rally in Pingtung County to stump for Tsao Chi-hung (曹啟鴻), the party's candidate for the county's commissioner.
Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) will join Chen and Su today in the Taipei County rally in support of Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉), the DPP's candidate for Taipei County commissioner.
Meanwhile, Lu and Hsieh will attend the rally in Taoyuan County today.
According to DPP officials, the president's truck-tour has lifted the approval rating of the DPP. The party's ratings had plunged to a record low because of the profiteering scandal surrounding the Kaohsiung MRT project involving former Presidential Office deputy secretary-general Chen Che-nan (
The president will also participate in the party's pro-reform marches on Sunday, with the goal of mobilizing 600,000 participants.
In related news, the Central Election Commission (CEC) said yesterday that it will only announce the ballots garnered by each candidate in the Dec. 3 elections after all the ballots have been counted in the approximately 14,000 polling stations around the country.
The CEC said three different boxes will be used for the ballots for city and county chiefs, city and county councilors, and village and township chiefs.
As ballots cast in the wrong boxes will also be considered valid, there will be no announcement of results until the counting of the ballots from all the elections is complete, in case some ballots are placed in the wrong boxes, the commission said.
A relatively large earthquake may strike within the next two weeks, following a magnitude 5.2 temblor that shook Taitung County this morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. An earthquake struck at 8:18am today 10.2km west of Taitung County Hall in Taitung City at a relatively shallow depth of 6.5km, CWA data showed. The largest intensity of 4 was felt in Taitung and Pingtung counties, which received an alert notice, while areas north of Taichung did not feel any shaking, the CWA said. The earthquake was the result of the collision between the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the agency said, adding
Snow fell in the mountainous areas of northern, central and eastern Taiwan in the early hours of yesterday, as cold air currents moved south. In the northern municipality of Taoyuan, snow started falling at about 6am in Fusing District (復興), district head Su Tso-hsi (蘇佐璽) said. By 10am, Lalashan National Forest Recreation Area, as well as Hualing (華陵), Sanguang (三光) and Gaoyi (高義) boroughs had seen snowfall, Su said. In central Taiwan, Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli County and Hehuanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Nantou County saw snowfall of 5cm and 6cm respectively, by 10am, staff at the parks said. It began snowing
The 2025 Kaohsiung Wonderland–Winter Amusement Park event has teamed up with the Japanese manga series Chiikawa this year for its opening at Love River Bay yesterday, attracting more than 10,000 visitors, the city government said. Following the success of the “2024 Kaohsiung Wonderland” collaboration with a giant inflatable yellow duck installation designed by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, this year the Kaohsiung Tourism Bureau collaborated with Chiikawa by Japanese illustrator Nagano to present two giant inflatable characters. Two inflatable floats — the main character, Chiikwa, a white bear-like creature with round ears, and Hachiware, a white cat with a blue-tipped tail
HOLIDAY EXERCISE: National forest recreation areas from north to south offer travelers a wide choice of sights to connect with nature and enjoy its benefits Hiking is a good way to improve one’s health, the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency said, as it released a list of national forest recreation areas that travelers can visit during the Lunar New Year holiday. Taking a green shower of phytoncides in the woods could boost one’s immunity system and metabolism, agency Director-General Lin Hwa-ching (林華慶) cited a Japanese study as saying. For people visiting northern Taiwan, Lin recommended the Dongyanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Taoyuan’s Fusing District (復興). Once an important plantation in the north, Dongyanshan (東眼山) has a number of historic monuments, he said. The area is broadly covered by
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