A total of 412 legislative candidates have registered with the election authorities for the Jan. 14 presidential and legislative elections, the Central Election Commission (CEC) said yesterday.
According to a notice published by the commission, a total of 79 legislators will be directly elected to the 113-seat legislature, with six of the 79 seats reserved for Aboriginal constituencies. The other 34 seats will be apportioned based on a separate vote for political parties, it added.
The law stipulates that 34 of the legislature’s 113 seats are reserved for legislators-at-large and awarded to parties in proportion to the number of votes they receive in the legislative election. A political party must win at least 5 percent of the votes cast in the election to be eligible for a share of the at-large seats.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
Among the legislative candidates who registered with the commission on the last day of registration yesterday were the New Party and the Green Party Taiwan, which nominated six and two legislator-at-large candidates respectively.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) have 34 and 33 nominees for legislator-at-large seats respectively, while the People First Party registered 18 and the Taiwan Solidarity Union registered 10.
Assessing the party’s electoral outlook, KMT officials yesterday said they expected the party to win over half the seats in the legislature, but it was still possible that its legislative majority would be small.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
In the current legislature, the KMT holds three-quarters of the 113 seats, while the DPP, which previously held 89 of the 225-seat legislature in 2004, has 32 seats.
DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) yesterday estimated that the DPP would win at least 50 of the legislative seats, including 16 or 17 legislator-at-large seats, and at least 34 seats in the district elections.
The party continues to work toward winning 57 seats so that it has a legislative majority, he added.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
Additional reporting by Tseng Wei-chen
Photo: CNA
TENSIONS: The Chinese aircraft and vessels were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise, the Ministry of National Defense said A relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity yesterday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the western Pacific, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. In a statement, the ministry said 36 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it, and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20am to 9:30am yesterday. They were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
CASES SLOWING: Although weekly COVID-19 cases are rising, the growth rate has been falling, from 90 percent to 30 percent, 14 percent and 6 percent, the CDC said COVID-19 hospitalizations last week rose 6 percent to 987, while deaths soared 55 percent to 99, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that the recent wave of infections would likely peak this week. People aged 65 or older accounted for 79 percent of the hospitalizations and 90 percent of the deaths, the majority of whom have or had underlying health conditions, CDC data showed. The youngest hospitalized case last week was a six-month-old, who was born preterm and was unvaccinated, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. The infant had a fever, coughing and a runny nose early this month, but