Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) yesterday rejected the “hall of one voice” label attached to the party after it earlier this week revoked the memberships of five party members who often publicly criticized the party.
“The decision was necessary to uphold the party’s discipline. Party members can criticize the party, chairman, or any party leader, but they cannot undermine party unity,” Chu said.
Chu said that the most important purpose of the expulsion was to call on everyone to “unite as one,” to refrain from “waving a blue flag to oppose the blue flag,” or to “collude with the pan-green camp behind the pan-blue camp’s back.”
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
“These kinds of behaviors are impermissible,” Chu said of the expulsions.
The purge has drawn derisive comments that the KMT is a “hall of one voice,” where people with different views are not allowed in.
Concerns were also raised that it could accentuate divisions which the party has been struggling with in that, except for alternative Central Committee member Lee Po-jung (李柏融), the other four kicked out of the party are likely to face off against their previous KMT colleagues in January’s legislative election.
The KMT, which has picked Legislator Yen Kuan-hen (顏寬恆) over Chi Kuo-tung (紀國棟) to run in the second constituency of Taichung, would have to submissively surrender the seat to the Democratic Progressive Party if Chi decides to run as an independent candidate to make it a three-way race, SET-TV reported.
KMT Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆), seeking re-election in the eighth constituency of Taipei, consisting of Wenshan District (文山) and part of Zhongzheng District (中正), is expected to run against Taipei City Councilor Lee Ching-yuan (李慶元), who has hinted he may run against Lai as an independent candidate.
Former Taipei city councilor Yang Shih-chiu (楊實秋) has been rumored to be running for a legislative seat in the seventh constituency of Taipei, including Xinyi District (信義) and part of Songshan District (松山), against KMT Legislator Alex Fei (費鴻泰).
Yao Li-ming (姚立明), who was the campaign manager of Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) in last year’s mayoral election, recently confirmed Yang is among a few KMT politicians he tried talking into running as an independent legislative candidate.
Chang Sho-wen (張碩文), who quit the KMT to join the People First Party before he was expelled from the KMT, is running for a legislative seat in the third constituency of New Taipei City in Sanchong District (三重) where the KMT is likely to nominate Lee Chien-lung (李乾龍), who served as mayor of the former Sanchong city.
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
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
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
Taiwan’s passport ranked 34th in the world, with access to 141 visa-free destinations, according to the latest update to the Henley Passport Index released today. The index put together by Henley & Partners ranks 199 passports globally based on the number of destinations holders can access without a visa out of 227, and is updated monthly. The 141 visa-free destinations for Taiwanese passport holders are a slight decrease from last year, when holders had access to 145 destinations. Botswana and Columbia are among the countries that have recently ended visa-free status for Taiwanese after “bowing to pressure from the Chinese government,” the Ministry
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