Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) yesterday announced the party’s list of legislator-at-large candidates, saying the list shows the party’s readiness to take over the responsibilities of a governing party.
“Society has more expectations of us this time, and we have more space as well, so we wanted to demonstrate a different way of thinking,” Wu said after members of the DPP Central Executive Committee agreed on the final list of legislator-at-large candidates.
“Candidates on the ‘safe’ list represent a variety of social issues: food safety; environmental protection; social welfare; healthcare; long-term care; finance and pension reform; youth entrepreneurship; agriculture; labor; Aboriginal matters; Hakka matters; culture; education; gender; children and juvenile rights; human rights; judicial reform; and transitional justice,” Wu said.
“These are the issues that the public is most concerned about, and in the future, we will depend on these legislators to push for reform and progress in their respective fields,” he added.
The party estimated that it might receive enough ballots to secure seats in the legislature for the first 16 people on the list of 34.
The top 16 candidates on the list include National Taiwan University College of Public Health associate professor Wu Kun-yuh (吳焜裕), who ranked first; Federation for the Welfare of the Elderly secretary-general Wu Yu-chin (吳玉琴); long-time environmentalist Chen Man-li (陳曼麗); Taiwan Rural Front secretary-general Frida Tsai (蔡培慧); Alliance for Handicapped People secretary-general Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋); and Taoyuan Department of Indigenous Affairs Director-General Kolas Yotaka.
Incumbent legislators-at-large — such as Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康), Cheng Li-chun (鄭麗君), Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁), Yu Mei-nu (尤美女) and Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) — were also on the “safe list.”
“The list shows that we are ready to take on the responsibilities of a governing party, as well as our drive to expand our support in society,” Joseph Wu said. “I would like to extend my gratitude for the passage of the list, and I hope that all will support it so we can improve our representation and capability in the legislature.”
Many veteran lawmakers and elected officials were omitted from the list, because the party wanted to recruit more new blood, DPP spokesperson Cheng Yun-peng (鄭運鵬) quoted Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊), who was a member of the nomination committee, as saying.
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of