Amid claims from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) that its chairman, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), wishes to meet with People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) to work out an alliance for the January legislative elections, the PFP accused the KMT of sabotaging the PFP behind its back.
According to PFP sources, while the KMT said it wanted to cooperate with the PFP in the elections, it was telling potential PFP legislator hopefuls to “look at the big picture” and to back out from the elections.
For example, the sources said, Taipei City Councilor Huang Shan-shan (黃珊珊) of the PFP, who was planning to run in the legislative elections in the Nangang (南港) Neihu (內湖) constituency, has been pressured by the KMT to back out of the campaign.
Sources from the PFP said the party would announce its list of nominees for legislators as early as next week, adding that as well as about 10 nominees for Taiwan proper, the PFP would also nominate candidates for Taiwan’s -outlying islands.
The move by the PFP, which split from the KMT in 2000 under the leadership of Soong — a former KMT secretary-general — was largely interpreted as a sign of disunity in the KMT-dominated pan-blue camp, signaling that Soong and his tiny party would go their own way in the elections.
The source added that no further details could be given at this time because one or two potential legislative nominees were planning to back out of the elections because of KMT pressure.
When asked for comment on the KMT’s alleged strategy of “seeking cooperation while attacking at the time same,” PFP Secretary-General Chin Ching-sheng (秦金生) said he “has gotten used to it.”
He added he did not wish to discuss the issue because the KMT would no doubt deny it.
“But if you ask around among the grassroots politicians, you’ll know [about the KMT’s tactics,]” he said.
On Premier Wu Den-yih’s (吳敦義) recent remarks that Ma has not been able to get in touch with Soong on the telephone in the past month to set up a meeting to discuss cooperation between the two parties in the elections, Chin said he was unaware of the matter.
The PFP chairman’s office, meanwhile, also denied Wu’s remarks, saying it had not received a call from the Presidential Office since the Ma administration took office in 2008, adding that any news relating to the Ma-Soong meeting had only been gleaned from the media.
PFP sources said that not only was the KMT sabotaging PFP campaign efforts, it also spread propaganda to persuade pan-blue supporters that they should not support the PFP, in a bid to try to force the PFP out of the election.
According to PFP sources, the party has received many calls asking it to see the big picture and stand united. Propaganda was suspected because it was obvious that those callers were organized because they all sounded as if they were reading straight from a script, the sources added.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CNA
TRANSLATED BY JAKE CHUNG, STAFF WRITER
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS