While Tainan Mayor William Lai (賴清德) is yet to make his final decision on whether to enter the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) primary for next year’s presidential election, Taiwan Brain Trust chairman Wu Rong-i (吳榮義) said that Lai has less support within the party than DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
When the DPP’s Central Standing Committee decided last week that it would bring the nomination process for next year’s presidential election forward, former presidential adviser Koo Kwang-ming (辜寬敏) criticized Tsai, saying she had made the decision so that other competitors would not have sufficient time to prepare.
Koo went on to declare his support for Lai in the presidential race, and said that the Taiwan Brain Trust would make public a poll on support for Lai at a press conference on Wednesday.
However, while results for several aspects of domestic and cross-strait politics were released, there was nothing on Lai’s support rate.
Asked about it during a separate press conference yesterday, Wu promised that the think tank would eventually publicize the poll results for Lai.
“Lai is making his final decision now, so we decided to release the poll result later, to avoid affecting his decisionmaking,” Wu told the media.
However, when further asked if the think tank decided not to publicize the poll result because Lai’s support was falling behind Tsai’s, Wu said: “It’s not possible to have a poll result with Lai winning over Tsai.”
“Tsai has long been preparing for the presidential race, but the news that Lai may also run in the election has just surfaced,” he said.
While both Koo and Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) have expressed their support for Lai in the presidential race, Lai declined to comment yesterday, saying that it was not an appropriate time to discuss the issue as the nation mourns over the plane crash.
However, earlier, Lai said that he would announce his final decision on Monday during a book launch.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
RSS