The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday lost its traditional stronghold of Hsinchu City despite a split in the opposition vote, while it retained power in Hsinchu County and Miaoli County.
The region’s dramatic contests featured many familiar faces, with a former mayor and a former commissioner joining the fray, although both failed in their attempts to reclaim their former posts.
In Hsinchu City, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) nominee Lin Chih-chien (林智堅) prevailed by a whisker in a three-legged mayoral race despite a split in the pan-green vote, defeating KMT Mayor Hsu Ming-tsai (許明財) and former mayor Tsai Jen-chien (蔡仁堅), who ran as an independent candidate after failing to make the DPP ticket in September.
Lin triumphed with 76,578 votes, albeit by a razor-thin margin, with Hsu just behind with 75,564 votes, and Tsai trailing in third with 40,480 votes, ending a race marked by the exchange of vicious attacks between the two DPP-affiliated candidates.
Lin and Tsai received 38.36 and 20.28 percent of the vote respectively, a major improvement for the DPP from the 41 percent it received in 2009, while Hsu’s share of the vote dropped from 55 to 37.85 percent.
Hsinchu County Commissioner Chiu Ching-chun (邱鏡淳) staved off a close challenge from his predecessor, Cheng Yung-chin (鄭永金), an ex-KMT member who ran as an independent candidate.
Cheng lost despite the backing of the DPP, which chose not to field a candidate in the county, which has traditionally been dominated by the pan-blue camp.
Chiu collected 124,309 votes, beating the 118,698 votes that went to his nearest rival. The two received an almost even share of the vote, with Chiu claiming 46.94 percent and Cheng with 44.82 percent.
In the battle for Miaoli County commissioner, KMT Legislator Hsu Yao-chang (徐耀昌) breezed through in another multi-legged race, winning 147,547 votes, leaving behind the DPP’s Wu Yi-chen (吳宜臻) and independent candidate Kang Shih-ju (康世儒), who received 89,838 votes and 60,356 votes respectively.
Hsu declared victory despite being embroiled in an ongoing legal case. The candidate is appealing a nine-year sentence for graft committed during his term as the mayor of Toufen Township (頭份).
Discussions of a possible alliance between Kang and the DPP failed to materialize, closing the door to a reenactment of Kang’s successful legislative campaign in 2009, in which the former KMT member received DPP support as an independent.
The KMT remained dominant, with Hsu racking up 46.59 percent of the vote in a victory comparable to his predecessor Liu Cheng-hung’s (劉政鴻) win in 2009 with 63 percent.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
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
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