Richard Chang (張承中), husband of pop singer Selina Jen (任家萱), yesterday announced on Facebook that he will run as an independent legislative candidate in Taipei’s seventh electoral district, becoming the fifth person to enter the race.
The constituency is comprised of Xinyi District (信義) and the southern part of Songshan District (松山).
Chang, a lawyer, said he is “gratified” that friends have urged him to run, including prominent members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the People First Party.
Chang said he is “running to get things done,” and would not “join a party for the sake of running.”
“I am not pan-blue, pan-green or pan-orange, but a force for the center,” he said.
KMT Legislator Alex Fai (費鴻泰), who is seeking re-election in the seventh district, said that everyone has a right to participate in elections in a democracy and he had “no special thoughts” about Chang’s candidacy.
His own record of public service and achievements in “fighting against the establishment” are well known, Tsai said.
Green Party Taiwan and Social Democratic Party Alliance legislative candidate Lu Hsin-chieh (呂欣潔) questioned Chang’s ability to address economic issues such as income inequality, inadequate protection of workers’ rights, youth impoverishment and the costs of raising a family, given that according to Chang’s own announcement he is wealthy enough to own property in Xinyi, one of Taipei’s most expensive districts.
The other candidates in the seventh district race are Taiwan Independence Party member Huang Ching-yuan (黃清原) and former KMT Taipei city councilor Yang Shih-chiu (楊實秋), who was expelled from the KMT in July over comments he made about the central government and is running as an independent.
DPP Taipei chapter head Cheng-kuo (黃承國) said the DPP considers the district a “no-nomination” race in order to give “third-force” candidates room to run.
The DPP would prefer to see non-aligned groups join forces and nominate a single candidate before it considers making one of the candidates its official partner, Huang said.
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
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
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS