People First Party (PFP) presidential candidate James Soong (宋楚瑜) yesterday expressed confidence in his ability to win votes in Miaoli County after he was greeted by several Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative candidates during his visit to a former commissioner of the traditional KMT stronghold.
Soong paid a visit to former county commissioner Fu Hsueh-peng (傅學鵬), a local heavyweight with a strong grassroots political network, at Fu’s home in Gongguan Township (公館) yesterday morning, which was packed with hundreds of Soong’s supporters and KMT members.
Miaoli County Council deputy speaker Chen Ming-chao (陳明朝) of the KMT, KMT legislative candidate Hsu Chih-jung (徐志榮) and Chiu Li-li (邱俐俐), executive officer to KMT Legislator Chen Chao-ming (陳超明), were among the crowd.
Fu praised Soong for his leadership and execution capability during his term as Taiwan’s provincial governor, urging voters to rise above political affiliations in next year’s presidential race and support someone with the ability to actually govern.
“Apparently, I flipped Miaoli. Many [KMT] local heavyweights have chosen to come out to support me,” Soong said, before singing Hakka folk songs.
Soong said he plans to put individuals of Hakka origin in significant positions in the coalition government he promised to establish if elected for the top office and vowed to reinvigorate the Hakka spirit and culture.
Soong later visited former vice president Li Yuan-zu (李元簇) of the KMT, who also openly threw his support behind the PFP candidate.
KMT Miaoli County executive committee director Liu Ming-jen (劉明仁) said that all of the party’s county councilors and borough wardens present were only there due to their personal ties with Fu.
Liu added that all of them informed the party in advance of their plans to attend the event.
The attendance of KMT members and pan-blue vote brokers at Soong’s campaign events over the past few weeks has reportedly unnerved the ruling party, which has interpreted Soong’s moves as an attempt to lure pan-blue political figures into his party’s fold.
KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) has recently repeatedly called for unity and cooperation, as several members have “jumped ship” to the PFP.
Taiwanese barista Xie Yi-chen (謝溢宸) recently triumphed at the 2024 World Coffee Championships, taking home 1st place in the World Latte Art category. Xie, 28, impressed the judges in the final round with patterns of a whale, a moose, and a dragon in the three-day competition that took place in Copenhagen, Denmark from June 27-29, clinching the title of latte art world champion during his first time representing Taiwan on the world stage. At a press conference held by the Taiwan Coffee Association on Thursday, Xie said that creating latte art gives him a tremendous feeling of achievement. Speaking about his entries in
TRAVEL CONVENIENCE: The program is to shorten wait times while passing through airport checks and would start for Taiwanese from January next year Japan is to launch a new program to expedite entry procedures for Taiwanese starting from January next year. The Japanese government is planning to introduce new rules to shorten the time it takes foreign travelers to pass through immigration, thereby attracting more tourists to visit, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported yesterday. An airport preclearance program would be implemented to allow foreign travelers to finish some screenings at their departure airport’s terminals and undergo simple confirmation procedures upon arrival, it said. The program would initially be applied to travelers from Taiwan from January next year and could be extended to travelers from elsewhere depending
The annual Taipei Summer Festival, which starts today, is to tone down its fireworks displays, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said on Monday. Fireworks displays are to be held at the riverside site in Datong District’s (大同) Dadaocheng (大稻埕) area on four days at this year’s festival, with the first today, and then on Wednesday next week, July 31 and Aug. 10, the department said. There were eight displays last year, with the reduction aimed at minimizing inconvenience to local residents, it said. The first three shows, which are all on Wednesdays, are to last for five minutes, while the final
EYE ON MAYORS: The DPP would file a complaint with the Control Yuan against Ko and Chiang over their handling of reports of abuse at a preschool in the city The Taipei City Government’s belated response under Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) and his predecessor, Taiwan People’s Party Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), to alleged child sex abuse at a kindergarten resulted in more children being victimized, two Taipei City Councilors said yesterday. A Taipei preschool teacher has been charged with sexually abusing six children from 2021 to last year at a school registered to his mother. Prosecutors are reportedly considering additional charges amid a wave of new accusations allegedly linking the suspect to 20 other abused children and the discovery at his residence of more than 600 sexually explicit videos featuring minors. The